"After 27-yr battle, 580 contract safai workers to get their due", 13 April 2025

It is not to protest but to celebrate that hundreds of conservancy workers will gather at Azad Maidan on April 17 next week. Following a 27-year battle by the waste collectors' union Kachra Vahtuk Shramik Sangh (KVSS), the Supreme Court ordered the BMC to grant permanent jobs and back wages to 580 contract safai karamcharis last month. In the longstanding case informally called ‘panch sau assi’, the SC ruled that the workers—many of whom began cleaning and transporting the city’s waste to dumping grounds in 1997—must be considered permanent employees from the day they completed 240 days of service and receive back pay from October 13, 2006.

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"Many of the 580 workers are now dead or retired," says 45-year-old Diva-based Sunil Jagdale who stands to earn at least Rs 60,000 per month instead of the current Rs 19,000 once the order is executed. ..In the run-up to the golden jubilee of India’s Independence, the roads of central Mumbai were being scrubbed clean, recalls Ranade who watched conservancy workers eating their lunch atop trucks that stank. "They had to manually load garbage on those trucks. Trash would invariably fall on the sweepers while they climbed the rear ladder," says Ranade, who saw safai workers being shooed away in buses and trains due to the stench. .."We told them to demand their rightful wage—and they did. That movement brought another 2,700 workers into the union," says Ranade. While those 2,700 were absorbed in 2017, the original 580 continued to wait.

..On March 3 this year, came the turning point. The SC ordered the BMC to grant permanent status to the 580 workers, with monetary benefits from October 2006. The court also clarified that those who have since died, retired, or become incapacitated will receive benefits for the time they served. ..47-year-old Chembur-based Dadarao Patekar, who began working since 1996. .."Minimum wage is how much it takes to keep a human alive. If you are paid less than that, it means you are not considered worthy of the basic dignity of a human being, right?" asks Patekar..