CHENNAI: Despite suffering in poverty and neglect, not even one temporary cleanliness worker among the lakhs in Tamil Nadu has got the monthly Old Age Pension (OAP) since the Tamil Nadu Cleanliness Workers Welfare Board was constituted in 2007.
While officials said that they haven’t received any application for the Rs 1,000 monthly pension sanctioned by the board and blamed it on poor awareness, activists fault the civic bodies for not educating workers on the welfare measure.
According to senior officials of the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department, under which the board falls, all temporary staff can receive the pension in addition to other state government entitlements as long as they do not draw benefits from any other labour department welfare boards.
Majority of applications received from such workers are for accident insurance under which the family members will receive Rs 5 lakh in case of accident deaths and Rs 1 to Rs 5 lakh in case they suffer disability of hands, legs or eyes, officials said.
The lack of applications for pension, however, is in stark contrast to the number of sanitary workers who are in need of such post-retirement aid. The board itself has 74,000 registered temporary sanitary workers and none of them has applied for the pension.
Database on workers can improve uptake of pension, say officials
By the Chennai city corporation’s estimates, as of June this year, there are around 18,800 sanitary workers of which only 4,727 are permanent. Apart from those drawing salaries under the National Urban Livelihood Mission Scheme and the Corporation’s Non-Muster Rolls (NMR), there are an estimated 9,600 contract workers in Chennai city alone.
Most of these workers are in dire straits. For instance, Ayesha Biwi, a sanitary worker with the Chennai City Corporation, was asked not to come to work when she turned 60. She had swept the streets and collected waste for the city corporation for 18 years and is now the sole caretaker of two of her grandchildren, both under the age of 20, as her daughter had passed away.
“One day, I was suddenly told not to come to work. And, at the age of 60, I had to find work as a domestic help to meet our expenses. I work in three houses every day to make Rs 7,000 a month. An additional Rs 1,000 (from the OAP) would have been of great help. But I wasn’t aware of the scheme,” she said.
P Srinivasalu, general secretary of Red Flag Union for Greater Chennai Corporation Sanitary Workers told TNIE that he was not aware of such a scheme. “Now that the waste collection in most zones has been privatised, we have been attempting to understand what benefits are available to sanitary workers. We did not know the existence of the (cleanliness workers) welfare board, let alone the schemes under it,” he said.
Samuel Velanganni, organiser of Safai Karamchari Andolan said though there are several schemes targeted at conservancy of sanitary workers, not many benefit from them. “The onus should be on the corporation to advertise the schemes with wall posters or pamphlets. We are first-hand witness to how much a monthly pension will help sanitary workers,” Velanganni said.
Department officials, however, said that the situation will change once the database with details of temporary and freelance sanitary workers in the state is ready. They said for the last two years, they have been carrying out awareness campaigns about welfare schemes.