The strike by sanitation workers in Dehradun entered its 11th day on Wednesday even as the authorities continued the alternate arrangements and managed to clean up some parts of the city. A day after the Congress expressed its support for the striking workers, the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal also did the same with its leaders participating in the protest demonstration at Municipal Corporation of Dehradun.
While undertaking alternate measures to tackle the mounting piles of garbage across the city, MCD officials warned that more workers would be removed from work if they fail to return to work. The Dehradun municipal commissioner Vijay Kumar Jogdande said, “The strike of the sanitation workers has resulted in the city becoming littered by piles of garbage. This has also created the possibility of health issues especially for those in vicinity of garbage collection points. We had asked the protesting workers to hold a meeting with us to find a soluation with dialogue instead of going on strike but they came up with more demands like changing the work title of the sanitation workers doing the night shift and appointing more people as permanent sanitation workers, which is not in our hands."
Regarding the differences among some of the protesting workers after some workers were dismissed for continuing to abstain from work, he said that the workers do not seem to be clear among themselves. He said, “We welcome the workers who came back to work. The others still on strike appear to be affected by confusion and are hence unable to set a proper meeting with us."
When asked about the political parties coming in support of the protesting workers he said, “Instead of extending support to the strike, the political parties and leaders should come up with a solution. We will follow our orders and will remove more workers if they don’t go back to work,” he added.
Jogdande said that the MCD in the presence of police and district officials had cleaned about a dozen garbage collection points in the city collecting about 170 tonnes of garbage in two days.