HYDERABAD: Sanitation workers resumed work in the twin cities from Saturday afternoon under the direct supervision of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) without involvement of private contractors.
Except in one or two circles, most of the workers resumed work in all the circles of the GHMC. Political parties and GHMC unions hailed the move of the commissioner for doing away with the contractors.
From January 16, the women workers will be asked to form into Self-Help Groups (SHGs) with seven members as a unit. The GHMC will register them as SHGs and will open bank accounts and separate individual accounts of the members. The salaries would be deposited in their accounts on second of every month besides providing EPF and ESI contribution.
GHMC launched a cell phone monitoring system called OSRT to keep track on various activities of workers like attendance, working hours and location of sanitation staff. These details are received by the GHMC main server, monitored by the respective supervisors.
Speaking to Express, GHMC special commissioner Navin Mittal said contractors have no right to stall the sanitation works.If they have any grievances, they have various fora to raise their issues but stopping the workers from attending duties and taking city to ransom is very unfortunate, he said.
He said that if seven persons come together and form an SHG unit and are interested to take up sweeping, the GHMC will hand over the sweeping contract to them and pay Rs 6,700 per month to each worker with EPF and ESI facilities.
The workers would be entitled to get monthly salaries as per the rules unlike the present system where the contractor is pocketing most of the amount and not even paying Rs 4,000 or 5,000 per month to them. Presently, majority of the contractors are cheating workers and not paying minimum salaries as per the rules laid down.
The GHMC will be able to save Rs 50 crore annually by avoiding paying service tax and contractor commission. The GHMC is spending Rs 200 crore annually on sanitation alone, he said.GHMC Additional Commissioner (Health and Sanitation), Aleem Basha stringent action would be taken action against those contractors who try to harass the SHGs.