East Delhi reeking of garbage as sanitation workers go on strike

Scores of sanitation workers of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), who are demanding payment of their salaries, clearance of arrears and medical cashless card, protested outside the office of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia as their strike entered its seventh day on Tuesday.

"We dumped garbage in front of his office in Madhi Vihar area and also burnt his effigy. The honourable (Delhi) High Court has already ticked off the Delhi government for not ensuring the payment of salaries for the sanitation workers. If authorities do not listen to our demands, we will intensify the stir," said Sanjay Gehlot, president of the MCD Swachhata Karmchari Union.

Garbage mounted in colonies in Patparganj, Kailash Nagar, Ajit Nagar, among other places, as the air filled with stench. The union had on Monday also claimed that sections of workers from north and south civic bodies have also joined the agitation, but the civic bodies had denied it.

Prior to this, EDMC sanitation workers had protested outside the residence of East Delhi Mayor Neema Bhagat in Geeta Colony and also burnt her effigy.All three municipal corporations are led by BJP.

The opposition AAP in the civic bodies had on Monday hit out at the corporations over the issue, even as its leader in the NDMC, Rakesh Kumar, said, "We have urged other workers to not go on strike till Diwali at least, as it is not the fault of people of Delhi but of the civic bodies."

The AAP leader said his colleague Vikas Goyal, a councillor and a member of the standing committee of the NDMC, on Monday tried to raise the issue of sanitation, but the standing committee "did not allow" him to do so.mpost