Photo: Bitter Honey Clicks / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Cropped.
Clean-up crews returned across Bhopal late on Friday after sanitation workers ended a three-day strike that had left waste piled in markets and colonies just as Diwali week began.
The walkout was about pay and permanence. Workers say they earn about ₹10,500 a month and had sought ₹25,000. Many are daily-wage staff who have served the municipal corporation for years without a permanent post. They also wanted compassionate appointments for families of workers who die in service, and an end to hiring through contractors.
Called by the Akhil Bharatiya Safai Mazdoor Trade Union, the strike spread to civic bodies across Madhya Pradesh. Bhopal produces about 850 tonnes of waste a day; local reports put the three-day pile-up near 2,550 tonnes, with more than 400 collection vehicles idle.
The deadlock broke when a union delegation went with Minister of State Krishna Gaur to meet Chief Minister Mohan Yadav. Union state president Maganlal Jhanjhot said eight of ten demands were accepted and that a committee would take up regularisation.
As reported on Saturday, the government side said regulated staff would be made regular, and daily-wage workers with 29 days' service up to 2017 would move into the regulated cadre. In Bhopal alone that path is said to cover about 8,000 daily-wage and about 1,100 regulated workers; statewide the number is put above one lakh. A joint committee is to examine contract-system rules and compassionate-appointment cases.
These terms come from union statements and newspaper accounts of the meeting. A written government order has not been published. After the strike ended, the mayor, collector and municipal commissioner joined a public cleaning drive, and officials claimed the backlog would be cleared within 24 hours.
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