Cleaners threaten strike in Dhaka north
Conservancy workers yesterday threatened to go on a strike if their contractual recruitment through tender is not cancelled and the approval of the waste management firms that hired them is not renewed in a week.
They threatened to stop collecting waste from households in Dhaka North City Corporation area and go for tougher programmes if their demands are not met.
Leaders of Primary Waste Collection Service Providers (PWCSP), a platform for cleaners, made the announcement from a human chain in front of Jatiya Press Club in the morning.
Hundreds of cleaners took part in the human chain, many of them wearing shrouds.
The waste collectors' demands include cancellation of the decision to appoint cleaners through tenders, renewal of permission for organisations involved in waste collection and reintroduction of certificates by PWCSP in this regard.
According to a press release signed by PWCSP president, DNCC gives permission for waste collection every year and last year's deadline expired in December but the city corporation is yet to start the renewal process.
DNCC is planning to recruit cleaners through tenders, the press release said.
PWCSP president Nahid Akhtar said though the DNCC mayor had given them assurance, in many wards influential and political leaders are controlling the work.
She said as they did not get the renewal, they are failing to get any legal and administrative assistance.
Asked, Commodore M Saidur Rahman, chief waste management officer of DNCC, said they have decided to bring discipline to the door-to-door waste collection system.
He said in the existing system, the quality of the waste transport vans used by the collectors are not good, many children are involved in the process and they are also charging people more. In many places, they are charging from Tk 100 to even Tk 1,000, he said.
About the waste collectors' demand, he said, "Until we finalise the tender process, we are planning to renew their contract every year based on performance and if they do not maintain standards, their license will be cancelled."
About the tender, he said, "We will give priority to the existing garbage collecting organisations. But we are reducing the number of such organisations to ensure quality."
Saidur said they have fixed Tk 100 for the old wards and Tk 50 for new wards per household for collecting garbage.
"We are trying to break the syndication, who are charging people more," he said.
Mentionable, the recent move by Dhaka South City Corporation to "reform" the city's waste collection has not fared well with citizens, who say they are being charged excessively by the newly-appointed contractors, and the service is substandard.
DSCC started to appoint one primary collection service provider (PCSP) in each ward for collecting waste from all sorts of establishments under its jurisdiction from July last year.
According to the contract agreement, service providers will not charge more than Tk 100 per month from each household unit and other establishments for their service.
However, residents of several areas said the service providers were demanding much higher from households.
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