Patna: Patna faces the prospect of mounting piles of rubbish as thousands of municipal workers launched an indefinite strike on Thursday, bringing the city’s sanitation system to a halt during the peak of the monsoon season.
Around 4,000 employees of the Patna Municipal Corporation, including sanitation staff and water board workers, stopped work after authorities failed to respond to an 11-point list of demands. Protesters have also announced a foot march to the chief minister’s residence.
Residents fear that uncollected garbage, combined with heavy rain, could worsen public health risks, with dengue and malaria cases expected to rise.
Nand Kishore Das, principal general secretary of the Patna Municipal Corporation Class IV Employees Federation, accused city officials of deliberately ignoring workers’ concerns. “We had submitted our demands to the mayor, deputy mayor, executive officer and the urban development minister, but no talks were initiated. It seems they want to push 25 lakh people of Patna into filth,” he said.
The workers’ demands include permanent jobs for daily wage staff, an end to privatisation of services, pay parity, settlement of pending payments for retired and deceased employees, and measures against alleged irregularities by private agencies.
