Rs 3 crore homes, garbage-lined roads: Gurgaon hit by 21-day sanitation strike

RWAs want control of sanitation

With rain worsening the situation, residents said decomposing waste was raising fears of dengue and malaria. Several Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWAs) have now demanded that sanitation management and the funds allocated for it be handed directly to them.

In Sector 40, where 100 square yard residential plots command upwards of Rs 3 crore, residents said waste has been accumulating along internal roads and vacant plots for weeks.

“The entire sector is choking on garbage… The administration has turned living conditions into a nightmare,” said Abhimanyu Yadav, president of the Sector 40 RWA.

“If these conditions persist, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) will not be able to contain a dengue spread in Sector 40.”

Yadav said the RWA wanted control of sanitation and the funds allocated for it so residents could manage the workforce and ensure regular waste collection.

Residents also highlighted “gaps” in the sector’s sanitation deployment. While Sector 40 has a sanctioned strength of 21 sanitation workers, only 14 contractual workers — a supervisor and 13 sweepers — are assigned on the ground, they claimed.

They alleged that absenteeism and proxy attendance further reduce the workforce available on the ground.

In Uppal Southend, RWA president Col (retd) Surender Yadav said residents had been spending Rs 2 lakh a month since last year to hire an agency for sanitation.

“The strike is just an excuse. Now even more of their workers do not show up,” he alleged.

Vinita Sinha, RWA president of Sushant Lok A and A1 blocks, said residents had hired their own sweepers to sweep roads and also lift garbage. “Open plots in our society have not been cleaned since the strike and lots of garbage is getting accumulated there. We are spending our own funds now,” she said.

Sinha claimed that the problem predated the strike. “Thirty sanitation workers are supposed to show up… even before the strike, hardly a dozen would… We have been telling the MCG to hand over sanitation functions to us, like they have done for parks,” she said.

Bhawani Shankar Tripathy, a resident of Sector 23A, said the area had become a “stinking mess”.

“There is a risk of disease… We are tired of repeatedly telling the jurisdictional engineers and senior MCG officials of the situation.”

‘Cannot raise families on Rs 18,000’

For the protesting workers outside the old MCG office, the strike is against conditions that have made their jobs increasingly precarious.

“I supervise 13 workers at Sector 40; our team is responsible for the area’s cleanliness. We do not want to cause inconvenience to the public, but we have been left with no choice,” said Tej Pal, a contractual sanitation supervisor.

“Currently, we earn just Rs 18,000-Rs 19,000 a month. In a city like Gurgaon, it is impossible to raise children, pay rent, and run a household on these wages. We only want our jobs regularised, basic dignity, and wages so we can return to work and serve the city,” he added.

On the garbage crisis, Pal said workers also wanted the strike to end, but maintained that the government first needed to act on their demands.

A 17-point dispute

Union leaders said the May 13 agreement covered 17 demands, including regularisation of 13,000 contractual municipal workers and 1,175 fire personnel; scrapping private outsourcing and bringing sanitation staff directly onto department rolls; and reinstatement of 3,480 retrenched sanitation workers in Gurgaon.

The demands also include a monthly risk allowance of Rs 5,000, uniform allowances, medical coverage, revised ex-gratia provisions and a Rs 5 lakh retirement gratuity for eligible contractual staff.

“For over a decade, successive administrations have avoided permanent recruitments, forcing workers into precarious conditions under private contractors,” alleged Basant Kumar, state vice-president of the Nagar Palika Karamchari Sangh.