Sanitation workers in Vijayawada grin and bear it during festive days

Outsourced sanitation workers in Vijayawada are facing hard work, low pay and limited meals during Dasara celebrations. Despite a contract of ₹500/day, 3 meals/day and accommodation, workers are not receiving their wages on a day-to-day basis and are short-changed. Free meals are served at the temple, but not in the night. Contractors are responsible for their welfare, but it is unclear if they are following the rules.

Think Dasara and images of boisterous celebrations come to mind.

But for outsourced sanitation workers from outside the city who are brought here through a tendering process for Dasara duties, the festival means more hard work, less pay and only one meal a day.

Those who work on the first shift report for duty at 5 a.m. sharp. They work for eight hours until 1 p.m. Workers also work on two other shifts in the hot and unforgiving weather conditions of Vijayawada. Two more batches work from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. and from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

This year, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has drafted more than a 1,000 people from other places to support the local sanitation staff during the nine-day festival. The workers are put up in an under-construction building on the premises of the VMC office.

“From Pandit Nehru Bus Station to Indrakeeladri, there are 32 points. Around one hundred workers are assigned work on the hilltop, while the rest have to take care of the roads, ghats and other places. As per the contract, they are supposed to receive ₹500 per day, three meals a day and accommodation. The contractors are responsible for their welfare,” said Obeswara Rao, sanitation superviser in the Public Health Department of the VMC.

But the contract workers receive neither food nor ₹500 per day. Many are not paid on a day-to-day basis and are given their wages in one go at the end of the festival. They are usually short-changed in the process.

Five groups of outsourced workers that The Hindu spoke to said that the work pressure was so severe that they usually got to have only one meal a day ever since they arrived in the city on October 13. “You can grab a quick bite at a nearby stall, but sometimes it is unaffordable. I have used up most of the ₹400 that I brought from home,” said a woman worker from Etukuru village in Guntur district who did not wish to be named.