VISAKHAPATNAM: Though the sanitation staff of GVMC have returned to work after a two-week long strike, providing major relief to the city dwellers, the managements of hotels and restaurants as well as residents of apartments in some areas are forced to reportedly bribe the sanitation staff to get the garbage cleared from their premises. The sanitation staff are reportedly demanding a minimum of Rs 500 from the owners to clear the piles of garbage on their premises.
However, reacting to the issue, GVMC Commissioner J Pravin Kumar said that the workers should not demand bribe on their duty and also asserted that people must alert the authorities when faced with such a situation.
While tipping sanitation workers after they clear garbage in an area is common sight, the situation now is such that it has now become more or less inevitable to pay the workers for carrying out their duties. What with the strike leading to filth piling up in places, workers are taking advantage of it and demanding huge amounts, particularly from restaurants, food courts, places which have packed the waste in gunny bags all these days.
Owner of Moksha Restocafe in Ward 18 Daspalla Hills, Sashikanth Kumar said that the GVMC sanitary staff, here Monday, demanded Rs 400 to clear the garbage which had been gathered in the yard behind the restaurant since a couple of days.
“We had to agree on paying Rs 500 every month so as to get them to remove garbage from the restaurant on a daily basis,” he added. The same condition prevails in city’s other hotels and restaurants as well.
Not just the restaurants, it would seem that the situation is similar in most apartments and residential areas in the city. “We give Rs 20 to Rs 30 when the sanitation worker cleans the drainage when it’s blocked. This in quite common in our area.
The workers ask for some money to clean or take excess garbage,” said N Devi, a homemaker from Ramalayam Street in Isukathota. Moreover, it is learnt that the workers collect Rs 20 from each house in the case of apartments.
A senior official from GVMC said that apart from the sanitation workers, there are some garbage pickers who work privately and collect money from the owners to clear garbage besides taking salaries from their authorities.