CHENNAI: Panchayat sanitation workers deployed for local body election duty in Chengalpattu have still not received their salaries for September. In addition, they aren’t being paid extra wages, despite working long hours on election days.
“Our work timings are from 7 am to 1 pm and our job is to only collect garbage and clean the streets. But now, they have deployed us for election work to clean the polling booths and maintain them, for which work stretches up to 7 pm,” said Raji*, a sanitation worker in Urapakkam of Chengalpet. She said her salary, a meagre Rs 7,000, hasn’t come till October 9.
Their job entails sweeping and cleaning of polling booths, besides removal of garbage, including masks, that are scattered across the place. Ideally, contract sanitation workers must be paid for the extra hours they put in for work that’s out of their scope. “We also do not get any benefits such as pension or insurance. During polling on Wednesday, they did not give us lunch too,” said Raji. Kumar* another panchayat sanitation worker in Manivakkam, said they tasked him to ferry disabled persons to polling booths.
“With a meagre pay of Rs 7,000 and even that being delayed, we are forced to do all work given to us as we still need the job. We had to spend for lunch from our own pockets. On Wednesday, we cleaned the polling booth till 8 pm. We got nothing for that,” he added.
Contract sanitation workers demand that their jobs be made permanent. “With all such extra work, we can also be terminated without notice. So they must at least make our jobs permanent,” said Viji* a sanitation worker in Keelambakkam (*-names changed).