BHAWANIPATNA: Residents of the district headquarters town woke up to a rude shock on Sunday morning as the streets were littered with garbage due to the strike by outsourced sanitation workers of the Municipality. With the sanitation workers resorting to cease work unannounced, heaps of garbage and waste were found strewn on roads, emitting a foul smell.
The workers are demanding EPF of 11 months, payment of arrears of enhanced daily wages and Puja advance. The sanitation field workers also staged a demonstration in front of the Municipality office. Currently, there are 34 regular sanitation employees and 194 contractual workers engaged by the Municipality.
Later in the day, Municipality chairman Aditya Nanda tried to persuade agitators to call off their strike and join duty by assuring them that their grievances will be addressed by the outsourcing agency within a couple of days. However, despite the assurance, the agitating sanitation workers did not turn up for work.