Over the past decade, contract sanitary workers in Bengaluru have been waging a sustained fight against the contractor mafia which controls the management of garbage generated in India’s thriving metropolis, Bengaluru. The protest intensified last year with more than 5,000 sanitary workers or pourakarmikas striking work over different intervals, forcing the civic municipal body to sit up and take note.
Although in last June, the Karnataka government promised to regularise the services of 11,000 contract pourakarmikas working in the state, the story on the ground has been one of missed deadlines and failed promises. Based on reports published in The Hindu, here is a timeline of events starting from the first protest organised on Women’s Day 2017:
Freelance Copywriter | Cambridge, United Kingdom 