Safai Karamcharis — Demands and Hadtals
My everyday visits to Corporation department made me acutely aware about the hadtals — a protest against the authorities. The bright pink tent was visible from few kilometres outside the Municipal Corporation office but inside the office, the situation was entirely different. The leaking ceilings, the broken floor and piles of old files gave the corporation employees no time to notice the loud speaker just outside the building, nor the karamcharis and union leaders who chanted anti corporation slogans — ‘Corporation Murdabad’.
‘What are their demands?’ I asked the officers.
‘No idea’, one said.
‘These protesters have nothing else to do, today they demand for something, tomorrow for something else’, replied an officer.
Nobody had any clue. After days of visiting the office and talking to key officials, the silence was finally broken and it came to notice that these karamcharis were temporary employees, hired on contracts and they demanded to hold a permanent position. Clearing the air about the protest, the people conversed about this as a state-level issue and the officials sitting in the district here cannot resolve it for them.
While this response worked in pacifying me at that time, it could not stop me from not thinking about it over and over again.
As part of Swachh Sarvekshan 2019 initiative, Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associates have been actively involved in each and every aspect of the cleanliness campaign which was assessed by Swachh Bharat Mission in January 2019. The Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have been marked based on their overall performances and given an all India Rank. Unfortunately, the Safai Karamcharis are the ground zero workers but also the most neglected and left out part of the campaign. In Yamunanagar, there are two ULBs and about 400 Safai Karamcharis. Some are permanent employees while others are outsourced. As part of the Swachh Sarvekshan mandate, I planned a meeting with them to understand what their primary concerns are. I observed a strict hierarchy maintained in the sanitation team even while assembling together or sitting together in the room — first row was meant for the Chief Sanitary officer, second for the sanitary officer, followed by Safai darogas and in the end, the Safai Karamcharis.
The first meeting was organised in the Mini-Secretariat conference room. The unspoken sitting arrangements in the conference hall made me realise the power dynamics in the structure. The Safai Karamcharis sat in the back while officers took the front row. To ensure that each stakeholder is involved and felt open to put forth their opinions, it was time to change this scenario as all were asked to change the sitting arrangements. Safai Karamcharis now sat in the front close to other officers. This offended many. Not surprised at all with this approach, I had a sense of it already and was sure that it would affect many in the room. Some of them even came to me discuss this or rather thrusting to follow the traditional ways on conducting a meeting with varied stakeholders under one roof. But this was a planned and necessary step to change the outlook in the system. As everyone eased into the changed setting, I was finally able to have one-on-one interaction with the Safai Karamcharis.
‘What are the reasons for not using biometrics attendance?’ I asked.
Multiple response came by.
‘You people don’t understand how we work. We work on non-working days, we work extra hours especially during Chief Minister’s and other minister’s visit. There is no record of that’, expressed one of the staff.
‘The kind of work we do erases our fingerprints’, added another one.
‘We won’t allow the use of biometrics. Hum hadtal karenge (we will protest against this)’, stressed the union leader.
I had no answers to most of their questions.
‘You are given masks and gloves. Why don’t you use that?’, I intrigued.
‘We got glove four months back. How do you expect us to still use it? Here we don’t get place to sit and have lunch or even keep our equipment, hum safai karamchari hai toh humari kaun sunega (who is going to listen to us anyway)’, responded agitated staff members.
I realised this was a long battle which cannot be fought overnight, it needed patience and a lot of hard work. It is not only a systematic change which is required but also a behavioural change making every citizen of the country responsible and affectionate towards safai karamcharis. While this can be quite simple in approach, actually being able to do it becomes difficult for many. As far the system is concerned, an important component of Swachh Sarvekshan 2019 was to ensure that all safety equipment are given to the workers, opening of their respective bank accounts, awareness campaigns about government services and schemes available for them such as health initiatives for all among other things. An alternative to biometric attendance is still in the process of being explored which would allow the system to map the workers and would also build a trust in them by recording their working hours at all times.
While there is a long way to go and steady steps need to be taken, the recent Raahgiri (a citizen led initiative which promotes fitness and cleanliness drives) introduced the Sanitation workers as Swachta ke Sipahi (Soldiers of cleanliness), thereby reiterating their profession being as good as any other profession and paving way to a respectful discourse with utmost integrity towards them. The Swachh Sarvekshan campaign has pushed district officials to understand the needs and problems of ground zero workers, which marks a positive beginning.
