Garbage collectors stage protest near GHMC office

SAT workers protesting outside GHMC demanding the decision to hand over commercial garbage collection to the concessionaire be withdrawn

Garbage collectors joined hands in protests at the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s (GHMC) headquarters on Saturday against the alleged ‘encroachment’ of the city’s solid waste management concessionaire firm into their territories. However, garbage lifting operations were not affected in the city. A memorandum was submitted by the Union to the GHMC Commissioner R.V.Karnan with all their demands.

Dozens of the Swachh Auto Trolley (SAT) drivers and workers staged a sit-in near the GHMC entrance, raising slogans of ‘Ramky, go back’ and ‘Long live workers’ unity’, and demanding that the decision to hand over commercial garbage collection to the concessionaire be withdrawn.

“Earlier, there was an agreement with the GHMC that Ramky [Resustainability] would collect the garbage from around 1660 establishments, which are bulk garbage generators. But now, notices are being given to even smaller commercial establishments asking them to hand over their garbage to the concessionaire. This was not agreed upon, and it is a blow to our livelihoods,” said Katravath Gopal Naik, President of the Telangana Swachh Auto Tipper and Rikshaw Karmikula Union, which organised the demonstration.

Officials from the Sanitation Wing said, the GHMC, by agreement with the concessionaire signed in 2009, was obligated to pay for all aspects of garbage collection and processing, including residential, commercial, and bulk garbage. However, owing to the protests by the SAT drivers, that did not happen, and the concessionaire firm Resustainability is pressing for the full implementation of the agreement.

“We pay the concessionaire by the weight of the solid waste, as recorded near the Jawaharnagar dump site. The SAT workers collect the garbage for a fee from the generators and dump the same at our transfer stations, from where the concessionaire picks it up and takes it to Jawaharnagar. This process leads to double charges for the same garbage, and to avoid that, we need to hand over the entire garbage collection to the concessionaire,” said an official under the condition of anonymity.

However, SAT workers claim that an agreement was reached between the Union and the GHMC to the effect that GHMC would pay the concessionaire for bulk garbage, and the latter would pay the SAT workers for the collection of garbage, with a few conditions.

As per the conditions, the concessionaire firm should never try to take over the household garbage collection, and the name of the SAT worker and the registration number of the vehicle should be mentioned in the agreement between bulk garbage generators and the concessionaire. The workers should be paid the amount they had been getting from the bulk garbage generators earlier..