With an army of corporation outsourcing staff stepping forward to carry out an indefinite strike, the sanitation maintenance in the city has taken a massive hit in the coming days. The GVMC could lift only a few hundred tonnes out of the total daily generated waste of 1,000 tonnes. It is estimated that more than 1,200 tonnes of garbage have been lying unattended on the streets or in households in the last two days.

Workers and outsourcing staff engaged in public health, engineering, and water supply departments of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) have gone on an indefinite strike from Monday as the government has been brushing their demands aside for a long time now.
As part of their demands, the CITU demands that a health allowance of Rs 6,000 and a salary of Rs 21,000 be provided to contract and outsourcing workers. Schemes like Amma Vodi should be applied for the children of the outsourcing staff, vacancies should be filled, and retirement benefits be provided with immediate effect are included in the demand list.

Earlier, trade union leaders held discussions with the State Municipal Director Praveen Kumar and GVMC Commissioner G Lakshmisha. As no progress was made concerning their repeated demands, the decision to take an indefinite strike was made. 

While nearly 7,000 workers work in the public health and engineering department under GVMC, only 1,000 falls under the permanent employee category. Boycotting their duties will certainly negatively impact the services like sanitation maintenance and water supply in the city in the coming days. 

As such, the sanitation maintenance in parts of the city is terrible, and the situation will only worsen with the indefinite strike followed by rains. However, until the situation gets better and to tackle the staff crunch, the GVMC is planning for alternative arrangements.