Civic workers, unions divided over reunification Bill

No clarity on whether our issues will be taken up after civic bodies are merged, union leader

A day after the bill to reunify Delhi’s three municipal corporations was passed in the Lok Sabha, unions representing the civic bodies’ employees were divided over the issue. Some union leaders were not sure how reunification would solve the financial troubles ailing the three civic bodies, while others hoped that issues such as job regularisation and payments of pending salaries would be resolved after the muncipalities were reunified.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while presenting the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022 on Wednesday, said that it sought to make the civic bodies self-reliant. He also said that the trifurcation of the unified MCD, in 2012, may have been done for political reasons. 

Devanand Sharma, president, Anti-Malaria Ekta Karamchari Union (AMEKU), which represents a section of contractual workers deployed as Domestic Breeding Checkers (DBC) by the civic bodies, said that while salaries of workers continue to remain pending, no “financial route map was presented on how this issue will be fixed.”

“We were assured that our services will be regularised but that is yet to happen. Despite this Bill being passed in the Lower House, we still have no clarity on whether our issues will be taken up and resolved or whether we’ll find ourselves in a similar position as before,” said Mr. Sharma.

In late February, DBC workers went on an indefinite strike for over two weeks over the demand of regularisation of their services. Kuldeep Singh Khatri, who heads a union representing teachers of the civic bodies, echoed a similar view. According to him, the Bill was introduced “only to delay the civic elections, and not for the welfare of the employees.” 

However, A.P Khan, convener of the Confederation of Municipal Corporation of Delhi Employees Union (CMCDEU), said that the Bill will eliminate the recurring tussle between the Delhi government and the corporations, as it puts the Centre incharge.

He added, “Now it will become the Centre’s duty to clear the liabilities. What else can we do? We can only hope that this unification is a step that will benefit the workers.”