The contractual sanitary workers of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Memorial Hospital remained on strike to lodge protest against irregularities in payment of wages by the contractor on Tuesday.
The workers demanded from the hospital management to cancel the work of the contractor.
Dr Ambedkar hospital had started contract system for cleaning of the hospital. The work was assigned to a contractor two months ago who was looking after cleaning and sanitation work in the hospital with 90 workers including new and old.
The sanitary workers recently received their wages and they were shocked to find that some has been paid `2,100 and some got `2300. They accused the contractor of cheating them. They said that in presence of the labour officer their wages were fixed as `7,751 per month.
The workers were to receive `5,900 after deductions including provident fund. But the contractor had cheated them and deposited only `2,100 in their accounts.
On Monday also they had staged protest against the contractor for cheating them when the contractor and his men allegedly abused and manhandled them. Kiran Goswami, Kalyani Sharma, Shibu lal, laxmi Marar, Roopmala, Bhanu Vishwas and others had lodged a complaint with police against the contractor.
The workers have threatened to refrain from work and intensify their protest if their demands are overlooked.
The strike by sanitary workers affected the cleanliness work of the hospitals.
However, hospital authorities claimed that the sanitary workers performed their duties. They said that only a few sanitary workers refrained from work for getting low wages. The remaining contractual sanitary workers were on duty. In addition to the contractual workers, the regular employees of the hospital performed their duties and hence there was no effect on the sanitation and cleaning of the hospital.