Sanitation workers strip near Arvind Kejriwal's office, demand funds

NEW DELHI: Scores of sanitation workers stripped near Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s office on Thursday demanding funds for city’s cash-strapped civic bodies. With the deficit of east and north corporations running into crores, the civic bodies do not pay salaries on time and the workers are deprived of several other financial benefits. It makes life difficult for the sanitation workers, a group of whom are on symbolic strike for the last 50 days.
The sanitation workers blame Delhi government, which has not released all due funds of the third and fourth finance commissions to the civic bodies, for the woes.

“The Delhi government loves to conveniently ignore our protest. We resorted to naked protests to draw its attention,” said Sanjay Gehot, president MCD Swachhta Karamchari Union. The protesters gathered at Raj Ghat in the morning and together moved towards the secretariat. They stripped near the secretariat but policemen stopped the slogan shouting protesters from reaching chief minister’s office.
They scaled the barricades put to halt their march along the route. “When the policemen did not allow us to go to CM’s office, the march converted into a dharna near his office. The dharna continued for over one hour,” said a protester. Armed with orders from the secretariat a group of cops came to take a delegation of the protesters to meet deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia.
The protesters were asked to wear cloth before they were taken to meet Sisodia in his office. Sloganeering started in Sisodia’s office when the protesting sanitation workers found that the deputy CM was not in office. “He left office reportedly for some urgent engagement,” said Gehlot.
A union leader R B Utwal said the protests would continue till a permanent solution is provided. “If Delhi government pays the dues, the corporations would be able to pay its employees," he said. The corporations are not able to generate funds out of its infrastructure due to inefficient bureaucrats and lack of vision in the political leadership.