Gurugram sanitation workers extend strike through August 21

Hundreds of sanitation and sewerage workers gathered outside Gurugram’s old MCG office on Tuesday as their strike entered its 13th day, extending the stoppage through August 21.

Workers locked the office’s main gate from 9am to 11am, while another gate remained open for officials and the public. They later marched via Agrasen Chowk and Aggarwal Dharamshala Chowk to Siddheshwar Temple Chowk, where they burnt an effigy of Haryana urban local bodies minister Vipul Goel. The union also alleged a brief scuffle with police during the protest.

The Haryana Municipal Employees Union says its demands form part of a 17-point agreement reached with the state government on May 13. These include regularising about 13,000 municipal-roll employees across Haryana’s urban local bodies and ending the outsourcing of sanitation and sewerage work. Union leaders say the government had agreed to issue regularisation orders by June 30.

The protest follows an earlier extension of the Gurugram sanitation strike. In Sector 9A, resident Lalit Suraj Bhola said roads had not been manually swept for 25 days after a private sanitation contract ended last month. The unions say the action will become indefinite if their demands are not addressed by August 21.