DELHI SEWAGE WORKERS-DELHI HIGH COURT JUDGEMENT

DELHI: MILITANT MARCH PROTESTS WATER PRIVATISATION MOVE

Anurag Saxena

ON August 1, over one and a half thousand protestors marched from Delhi Gate to Delhi Sachivalaya (ITO) against renewed efforts of the Delhi government to privatise water in Delhi. One notes that public protests had foiled the earlier effort at water privatisation in 2005.

Through their march on August 1, organised by a broadbased organisation called the Jal Adhikar Manch (JAM), the protestors demanded that the Delhi government must immediately shelve the World Bank funded PPP project for the elite South Delhi areas --- promising 24x7 water supply, in which water distribution and pipeline maintenance are to be outsourced to private contractors. Rather, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), under the chairpersonship of Sheila Dikshit, the chief minister, must concentrate on equitable distribution of water across Delhi, ensuring regular water supply to over 25 per cent households in Delhi who depend on informal water markets for meeting their needs and over 30 per cent households that do not have adequate access to safe drinking water in Delhi, according to the government’s own sources.

Addressing the gathering, Rajya Sabha MP and CITU general secretary, Tapan Sen said that the experience of neo-liberalism has shown that private players are looting the public resources. Privatisation has aggravated various problems across the country, and yet the governments are keen on facilitating corporate gains and loot at the cost of the people’s interest. He welcomed the opposition being put up by unions in the Delhi Jal Board to DJB’s privatisation and appealed to the entire population of Delhi to join the struggle to stop water privatisation. He cautioned the people that privatisation would lead to increased tariff rates in Delhi.

Brinda Karat, Rajya Sabha MP and member of the CPI (M) Polit Bureau, also addressed the gathering. She said that with the outsourcing of billing by the DJB, the situation has worsened for poor households who are being charged outrageous bills up to Rs 12,000 a month. Corruption has increased manifold due to this outsourcing. Unmindful of repeated concerns raised by citizens, the government has allowed unhindered construction in the Yamuna floodplains, thereby contributing to water shortage in the city. The move towards privatisation would only aggravate the distributional inequalities in Delhi and must be opposed.

The meeting was chaired by Anurag Saxena (CITU) and also addressed by Pushpender Tyagi (DYFI), Kiran Shaheen (Pani Haq Abhiyaan), Sushil Sharma (Industrial Staff Union, DJB), Sonia Verma (JMS), Ved Prakash (Sewarage Department Mazdoor Union, DJB), Albeena Shakil (JMS) and Virender Gaur (DJB Union).

On this occasion, the protestors submitted a memorandum to the Delhi chief minister through her office, detailing their demands.

The Jal Adhikaar Manch, comprising the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Janwadi Mahila Samiti (JMS), Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), All India Lawyers Union (AILU), Jan Sanskriti, Democratic Teachers Front (DTF), Janwadi Lekhak Sangh (JLS), Jana Natya Manch (JANAM), Delhi Science Forum (DSF), Democratic Karmachari Front (DKF) and North Zone Insurance Employees Association (NZIEA) has resolved to continue this struggle till the privatisation efforts in DJB are withdrawn.

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

DELHI: STREET VENDORS STAGE DHARNA FOR RIGHT TO LIFE

IN order to register protest against an impending bill that threatens to throw crores of street vendors into unfathomable miseries, Delhi Pradesh Rehri Patri Khomcha Hawkers Union, affiliated to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, organised a dharna at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, from 10 a m to 3.30 p m on August 3. The UPA central government’s intention is to get the proposed bill passed and enacted into a law in the ongoing monsoon session of parliament.

After the passage of the proposed bill, the government would be inviting and allowing the foreign MNCs dealing in multi-brand wholesale and retail trade, like WalMart, TESCO, Metro AG, etc, to make huge investments and set up their retail outlets in India on the pattern of the already established chain-stores in over 80 countries the world over. Their annual turnover has already crossed the Rs 50 lakh crore mark.

True there are a few pliers of Rehri Patri Khomchas in Delhi whom the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) or the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) have allotted the tehbazari or hawker licences, and a few similar vendors in other metros and important big cities having more than 10 lakh population. But leaving this small section apart, after the passage of the proposed bill, crores of vendors would be labelled as unauthorised encroachers, removed from pavements, roads, streets and bazaars, and thus rendered jobless throughout the country.

Besides, in case the proposed draft bill is passed, the business of the small and medium-sized shopkeepers would also get adversely affected. As a result, lakhs of their employees would become surplus and hence removed from service, adding to the huge existing army of unemployed in the country. Miseries and hardships would severely strike the aforesaid sections of society in these days of soaring inflation.

It is with such a scenario looming in the background that Delhi Pradesh Rehri Patri Khomcha Hawkers Union has been consistently and constantly conducting militant struggles, courting arrest, holding protest marches, dharnas and demonstrations at various police stations, MCD zones, police headquarters and MCD headquarters, and also in front of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Poverty Alleviation. The union has since 1999 constantly protested against the highhandedness, excesses and atrocities perpetrated on the vendors in the capital by the nexus of concerned unscrupulous and corrupt officials of the MCD and the police.

It was the mounting pressure of this union and some other unions in Delhi and other metro cities for a resolution of the genuine and intricate problems of the vendors, lingering on for decades together, which compelled in the year 2004 the union government to frame and formulate a comprehensive draft policy for the welfare and rehabilitation of the urban street vendors; the policy was further amended and progressively reformed in the year 2009. A salient feature of this draft policy was the assurance given about sure issuance of the tehbazari or hawker licenses to all those unemployed who are engaged in petty trading, selling their wares or articles from pavements etc. It was said that the number of such licenses would be to the extent of two and a half per cent of the population of a particular metro city or important big city. This was certainly a right step and would have greatly helped all those unemployed who migrate from rural areas to cities in search of a livelihood. In case of non-availability of a service, they could hope to obtain a license from the municipal committee or municipal corporation to engage themselves in the said kind of jobs.

In several of its verdicts given during the last two decades and as late as October 2010, the Supreme Court of India has repeatedly emphasised that the “hawkers and squatters have a fundamental right as per the Article 19 (1) (g) of our Constitution to carry out business at public street but the same should be regulated.” The apex court further ruled that before June 30, 2011 the appropriate government should enact a law so that the hawkers knew the contours of their right.

However, it is shocking and surprising to know that the government has blatantly ignored the above mentioned ruling of the Supreme Court, which is tantamount to contempt of the court. Instead, the government has opted to bring in an anti-human bill, and press for its passage into a law, so that it may invite the multinational multi-brand retail tycoons to devour and wipe out the street vendors and the small shopkeepers.

Regrettably, it is clear that the authorities concerned have given a good bye, dropped and dumped the draft policy that was framed in 2004. While this comprehensive draft policy was to aid the social, economic and vocational uplift and security for the vendors, now its removal and reversal is the result of a deep-rooted conspiracy hatched by the vested interests, i.e. the Indian and foreign multi-brand retail trade corporate houses, bureaucrats and politicians. Preparations are now going on at full swing to get the proposed bill passed in this very monsoon session of parliament.

It is obvious that rehearsal has now begun to provide a wide playing ground to the multi-brand retail trade tycoons. The unholy nexus of the police and municipal authorities concerned are now labelling the large numbers of vendors in Delhi and New Delhi as unauthorised encroachers, abuse them, beat them up and drive them away systematically in small groups. Their rehries are being lifted and deposited in the municipal store houses. They are being heavily fined to the tune of Rs 1375 to Rs 2000, and also forced to sign an undertaking that they would not squat on the roadside any more after the return of their rehries and articles. The site or space thus vacated is being provided to car owners for car parking in lieu of lucrative premiums and fees.

In these circumstances, the Delhi Pradesh Rehri Patri Khomcha Hawkers Union has demanded that the proposed draft bill must be withdrawn forthwith. It has also demanded that appropriate licenses must be given to all the unemployed vendors who are already engaged in petty trading on the pavements and in the streets, as this is their only source of income. They are daily bread-earners and naturally have no bank balance. The dharna organised by the union also pressed the demand that the atrocities and excesses being inflicted by the combine of the police and MCD officials must be put an end to --- and for ever. Yet another demand the union is pressing is that no penalty must be imposed on the downtrodden street vendors.

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

FIRE DEATHS IN DELHI FACTORY

CITU Asks for Immediate Actions

THROUGH a letter written to the union home minister Mallikarjun Kharage on May 5, CITU general secretary Tapan Sen has drawn attention to the ghastly tragedy in which 11 workers were charred to death in a massive fire at M/s Pinki Porsch Pvt Ltd, a shoe factory in Udyog Nagar, Peeragarhi Area of West Delhi on April 27. As per reports, 80 people were working in this three-storey building whose exit points were locked from outside when the fire broke out, and many more casualties are feared. Out of the 80 people working in this factory, the names of only 22 workers were registered on the rolls. As the rest were employed through contractors, there were no entry records for these contract workers. As a result, relatives of these poor workers are still running from pillar to post to find out their whereabouts.

The letter has further pointed out that this was not an isolated incident as there have been instances of such fatal accidents in the factories located in this industrial area. Here thousands of workers are being employed through unregistered contractors, without any semblance of records regarding their entry or identity.

Expressing the strongly feeling that the Ministry of Labour of the government of India cannot remain a silent spectator to such ghastly cases of homicides perpetrated by a group of unscrupulous and greedy factory owners, the letter has asked the minister to take the following steps without any delay.

1) Order an immediate investigation by the Directorate General Factory Advice Service and Labour Institutes (DGFASLI), Mumbai into this multi-fatal accident.

2) Assessment of occupational safety and health in the factories located in Udyog Nagar in Peeragarhi Industrial Area in West Delhi by DGFASLI.

3) Making it mandatory for factory owners to issue identity cards to all workers employed through contractors for entry records which should be checked by the labour inspection authorities at regular intervals.

Urging the minister to treat the matter as urgent, the letter asked him to take remedial steps at the earliest so that such horrifying tragedies in the capital of this country do not recur again.

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

DEADLY DISASTER IN DELHI - SAVERA

The collapse of a five-storey building in Delhi killed 68 people and injured over 200 others on 15 November. This was the sixth such incident of death and injury resulting from building collapses in the capital in the past four years. The present one was the deadliest. This one incident exposes the precarious existence that this city’s working people lead. It also throws stark light on the culture of neglect that is practiced by the affluent sections towards the poor.

Jatin Haldar is waiting at a government hospital to claim the body of his 16-year-old son who died before his eyes. “I had just returned from work and was parking my cycle-rickshaw, when I heard a loud noise. Nearly an hour later I was able to spot my son and seven-year-old daughter. An iron rod had entered his stomach. I first rescued my daughter and then rushed towards Sapan. One of the policemen pulled out the iron rod and my son died on the spot. I rushed him to Lok Nayak (Hospital), but he was declared brought dead,” he says. His other two sons are admitted in another hospital with head injuries.

This heart rending scene is being repeated many times in hospitals and morgues of the capital since the night of 15 November 2010. Sometimes it is fathers weeping for their sons, sometimes it is grandmothers crying over dead children. There is even a 12-year old boy with wide eyes staring at his mother, holding her hand, as she wails in grief. Her husband, the boy’s father, has died.

Almost all of the 250 people staying in the 5-storey tenement in Lalita Park, a residential colony in east Delhi, were migrant workers from Bihar and West .Bengal. They worked as rickshaw pullers, domestic helps, and in small manufacturing units, one of which was located in the building itself. They had come from distant villages in search of jobs, as survival is very difficult in the villages. Little did they know that death can strike in a million ways in our national Capital.

On 15 November, the building collapsed, killing 68 people. It turns out now that since the heavy rains this year, water kept seeping into its basement. The colony is located barely a kilometer away from the Yamuna river. While bunds prevent direct flooding, the groundwater table has risen considerably since the rains. This has weakened the foundations of buildings.

But the story goes much deeper than this. The owner of the building is a known criminal, who has earlier been arrested for – adulteration of cement! He had illegally constructed several floors and additional rooms, presumably using substandard material. He was known to extort money with threats, and could not bear to hear any complaints. Reports had been made earlier to the Municipal Corporation and other authorities about the danger from water seepage and irregularities in construction, but the authorities just turned a blind eye to all these, thereby just inviting such a disaster.

The building housed not only families but some handicrafts and sewing units also. Workers aged 12 to 22 used to work there, and many even stayed on the premises. Each floor had 30-40 people living on it. Some of the families had come to stay there on rent after their jhuggies (tenements) were uprooted from the nearby slum of Yamuna Pushta.

“We came here with our entire family of 15, last Diwali and we had rented two rooms. We had been relocated in Ghewra (a village at the outskirts of Delhi) but since there are few avenues for making a living there, we decided to move here. Several other neighbours also shifted at the same time,” says Deepali Haldar. She came to the city twenty years ago from Murshidabad seeking employment. Now she works as a maid in the area while her husband is a rickshaw-puller. One of her sons was killed in the building collapse, while four other family members are seriously injured.

This is the fate of common working people in this city, which recently spent an estimated Rs.70,000 crores on holding the Commonwealth Games. It has no time, money or space for over 60% of its 1.5 crore population, which lives in substandard houses and works at a pittance to create and maintain the wealth of the metropolis, and to cater to the comfort of well off residents of the city.

Source: www.citucenre.org/