Sanitation workers across Madhya Pradesh went on strike on Wednesday, November 4, halting routine cleaning and garbage collection in Bhopal days ahead of Diwali, the news agency ANI reported. Garbage remained uncollected in several prominent commercial areas of the state capital, including New Market, leaving heaps of waste along markets and roads and causing inconvenience to traders and residents.

Source: ANI via DevDiscourse

The Free Press Journal's Bhopal edition reported that garbage collection had stopped in Bhopal as over one lakh sanitation workers joined the statewide strike ahead of Diwali, with waste littered in New Market. The workers had staged a protest in Bhopal on Tuesday, November 3, before stopping work from Tuesday night.

The strikers have two main demands: regularisation of contractual sanitation workers, and a monthly salary of Rs 25,000 for workers employed under the 29-day arrangement. Anil Sarwan, Bhopal district president of the Akhil Bharatiya Safai Mazdoor Congress, said the work would remain completely suspended until the demands were fulfilled, and that if the government did not accept them on Wednesday, the strike would continue in the coming days. He said the entire sanitation system in Bhopal had come to a standstill, with no garbage collection vehicles or sanitation workers visible on the roads.

Source: ANI via DevDiscourse

Sarwan said the government had assured regularisation in 2017, but that even after nearly ten years the workers had not received the benefits of permanent employment, apart from a slight increase in salary. Shopkeepers in New Market said no sanitation worker had turned up since Tuesday night; a trader said the market, which is usually cleaned and washed every night, had not even been swept, leaving shopfronts piled with garbage during the festive shopping season.

Source: ANI via DevDiscourse

The strike is not limited to Bhopal: ANI reported that sanitation workers across Madhya Pradesh have also joined the protest, raising the prospect of uncollected waste in cities and towns across the state through the Diwali period if no settlement is reached. The reports reviewed for this story carried no response from the state government or the Bhopal Municipal Corporation; whether officials negotiate with the union, and whether collection resumes before Diwali, is the next development to watch.