GHMC Workers Against Mayor-Ramky Pact

GHMC sanitation workers today gathered in large numbers outside the GHMC head office Locked in protest against GHMC Mayor Mohammad Majid Hussain's "green signal" to a pact with Ramky Enviro Engineering, the waste management wing of Ramky group of industries, over door-to-door garbage collection.

Not allowing anyone to get in or get out, they locked the gate to the office, and parked garbage trucks right outside the gate. This caused the situation to get our of control as today is also the date for the long pending GHMC general meeting, and the police had to intervene.

Criticising the fact that the Mayor could hand over all their jobs to a private institution from Andhra, without even paying them their pending salaries, GHMC workers union leader Gopal said that there was no way they would leave until the Mayor gives it in writing that their jobs would stay with them and would be made permanent.

"We have been cleaning Hyderabad since the Independence. Hyderabad is ours. How can he give the contract to Ramky? He must roll back this decision, or else we will bring the city to a halt. The people of Hyderabad will face a lot of troubles, and the Mayor will be responsible them," Gopal warned.

Meanwhile, the Mayor claims that the contract was made before his "reign", and that he was not responsible for the decision. On whether or not he was willing to comply with the people's demands, he made no comment.

The Ramky Group's Seemandhrite origins gave the confrontaion a pro-Telangana angle, with the workers insisting the Hyderabad was theirs and Telangana was theirs, and that they would not let "a company from Andhra to ruin their lives".