Garbage piles up in parts of Coimbatore as some sanitary workers continue strike

Time of India

16 hours ago

Photo by P Sreedharan
COIMBATORE: Though contract sanitary workers of the Coimbatore corporation called off their strike on Wednesday, residents in some parts of city were forced to dump garbage along the roads as a section of workers continued to boycott work.
More than 3,000 contract sanitary workers had been on strike since Monday demanding a wage hike. The strike affected door-to-door collection of waste and garbage removal. After a series of negotiations, the strike was withdrawn on Wednesday. But some workers, allegedly backed by political groups, continued to protest on Thursday and Friday.
J Nandakumar of G N Mills said, "For almost a week, we have not been able to dispose of the waste from our homes, and we are holding back three different segregated waste: wet waste, dry waste and meat waste.
Most of the neighbours have found an abandoned place to dump it but are not willing to disclose the location."
A resident of the Rathinapuri area, who owns a bakery on the Crosscut Road, said, "There is no option but to deliberately dump it along the subways, and many have put it along the canal. The corporation has removed the dustbins, and the stench is unbearable."
A corporation official said except for 250 workers, the rest had returned to work.
"On Thursday, about 1,500 tonne of waste was removed. On Friday, until late evening, nearly 1,100 tonne of waste was cleared. The workers have been asked to work round the clock in shifts to ensure that all the garbage in all the wards is completely removed.'
On Friday morning, the city police detained more than 100 sanitary workers who attempted to indulge in a road roko in front of the district collectorate.
AMMK general secretary
TTV Dhinakaran
extended support to the protesting sanitary workers. He slammed the DMK's govt for failing to fulfil the genuine demands of the sanitary workers. In a social media post, Dhinakaran stated that police had detained the workers whose demands were genuine. The DMK govt failed to fulfil the promises they made to these people, including weekly leave, permanent employment, compassionate grounds employment and other fundamental benefits, he said.
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