Garbage collection resumes as sanitation workers stop their strike

Mangaluru: The sanitation workers of Antony waste management company, who went on strike since Thursday last week and refused to collect garbage until their demands were met,  have finally ended their strike on Saturday.

The workers started working since the morning had by evening collected garbage from most parts of the city and decided to clear off the remaining garbage on Sunday.

Antony institution had to being a bulldozer to clear of the heaps of garbage and waste piled up at the Central, Kankanady and Surathkal markets. Since, the front side of the markets had the highest amount of garbage; the rain water had mixed with the waste and had given rise to foul smell.

 Garbage was already collected from select wards of the city on Friday itself. Jeppinamogaru, K.S.Rao Road, Shaktinagar and many other places witnessed garbage collection on Saturday. But, only at a few wards, the garbage was not collected even on Saturday. Hence, the garbage became a huge problem at such areas.

The garbage pile in front of some houses and shops was already emitting foul smell. Though the garbage and waste was collected from the Central market on Friday night, the work on cleaning up the area went up till Saturday afternoon.

An worker who quit the strike and reported back to duty spoke with ‘Udayavani’ and said, “Almost 600 sanitation workers collect garbage from 60 wards of the corporation from 6am to 3:30pm every day. Every vehicle makes 4-5 rounds during this time. But since the garbage was not collected on Thursday and Friday, there existed huge piles of garbage and wastage in front of houses, shops, apartments and markets. Hence, Saturday was not enough to clear off all the garbage as every vehicle had to make 10-12 trips to clear off the garbage. Therefore the garbage collection was carried until Saturday evening and the remaining garbage will be collected on Sunday morning,” he said.

Tons of garbage cleared!

Close to 300 tons of garbage is collected in the city daily. But, during the rainy season, the water mixes with the garbage and increases it weight to up to 350 tons. Since the garbage was not collected on Thursday and Friday, 700 tons of garbage had piled up in the city.

‘Contractors must make sure no strikes take place’

The contractors must make sure that the sanitation workers do not go on strike within the corporation limits. They should first look into any problems that arise. The people are troubled unnecessarily if the contractors and sanitation workers of Antony waste go on a strike all of a sudden. This issue has happened due to the lack of communication between the contractors and the corporation which has been informed to the contractors and the corporation officials, and direction has been given to give the pending 2 crore rupees to the contractors. The contractors must immediately begin to clean the garbage piled up along the road side. In future they should not begin a strike all of a sudden, warned MLA.