VIJAYAWADA: Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development Audimulapu Suresh on Saturday said every measure has been taken to ensure that the public is not put to any inconvenience and public health is not affected due to the ongoing strike of municipal outsourcing sanitation workers.
For the past several days, sanitation workers have been on strike demanding the government address their long-pending issues, including regularisation of employment and equal pay for equal work, as agreed upon after the 2019 regime change.
The minister said care has been taken, particularly regarding sanitation, drinking water supply and street lights maintenance due to the strike. A total of 3,182 sanitation workers and 100 non-sanitation workers are on strike in 82 out of 123 urban local bodies across the State.
“We have hired temporary staff and started clearing garbage from streets, households, hospitals, railway stations and other public places for the past four days so that people are not subjected to any inconvenience and no public health issues occur,” he explained.
Suresh said they have been making every effort to resolve the strike by holding talks with the workers' unions. “We held negotiations with the representatives of the workers' unions twice. Once the meeting was held by the Special Chief Secretary and the second time I held talks with them. Except for CITU, most of the unions that had participated in the strike, have withdrawn and joined the duties,” he said.
Their main demand has been job security and the striking staff have been explained that the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government is committed to solving their problems. “After the YSRC government formed, their salaries were enhanced to Rs 15,000 from Rs 12,000 per month and later Rs 6,000 was also added,” he elaborated.