More than two lakh conservancy workers are employed in daily operations across the state. The majority of them, however, work under private contractors.
Published Aug 21, 2025 | 11:00 AM ⚊ Updated Aug 21, 2025 | 11:00 AM
Sanitation workers protesting in Coimbatore in 2022 (Supplied)
Synopsis: Conservancy workers across Tamil Nadu have been staging protests since the beginning of August, demanding permanent government employment and an end to privatisation. Of the two lakh conservancy workers employed across the state, a majority work under private contractors, with unions blaming successive DMK and AIADMK governments for advancing privatisation despite repeated court rulings and wage committee recommendations.
Since the beginning of August, conservancy workers across several districts in Tamil Nadu have been protesting with various demands.
The most prominent among them are the National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) conservancy workers in Chennai’s zones 5 and 6, who staged a protest in front of the Ripon Building for more than 13 days from 1 August.
They alleged that their employment had been shifted under private contractors, leading to reduced wages and lack of job security, and demanded permanent government employment.
On the night of 13 August, citing obstruction to traffic and acting on a court order, the police forcibly removed them from the protest site.
Following this, similar protests broke out in Madurai, Coimbatore, and other parts of Tamil Nadu.
While specific demands differ slightly across regions, the primary demand of conservancy workers are as follows:
While workers demand permanent employment and an end to privatisation, government representatives often deflect responsibility by pointing fingers at past regimes, raising the question: who first introduced privatisation into Tamil Nadu’s conservancy work?
Tamil Nadu has 38 districts, 21 municipal corporations, 148 municipalities, 489 town panchayats, and 12,524 village panchayats.
In all these local bodies, conservancy workers are engaged in garbage collection, segregation of biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste, and various related tasks. They are also deployed for special duties during temple festivals, political rallies, and public events.
According to R Balasundaram, General Secretary of the Tamil Nadu Rural Development and Local Bodies Employees Federation, more than two lakh conservancy workers are employed in daily operations across the state. The majority of them, however, work under private contractors.
The problems of working under private contractors, consolidated pay, or daily wages can be seen in the recent protests of conservancy workers in Madurai.
For long, these workers have been demanding permanent jobs, one-month Deepavali bonus, and an end to privatisation.
Madurai Corporation is divided into five zones. Across all zones, 3,250 conservancy workers are employed under a private company called Our Land.
Apart from this, the corporation also employs over 1,200 workers, of which 700 are permanent staff, 550 are daily wagers, and 200 are on consolidated pay.
One of the main demands of the Madurai protesters is the regularisation of 389 daily wage workers. On 22 April 2022, the Madurai Bench of the High Court ruled that these workers were eligible for permanent employment.
However, the corporation challenged this ruling in the Supreme Court, where the case is still pending. The protesters demand that this appeal be withdrawn and that they be granted jobs.
“Why should ordinary, poor workers be forced to fight up to the Supreme Court against a large government institution just to secure a rightful claim?” they ask.
In Madurai Corporation, the 700 permanent workers receive salaries starting from ₹48,000, varying with experience.
In contrast, those on consolidated pay, daily wages, or working under private contractors earn only ₹593 per day, amounting to about ₹15,000 to ₹17,000 a month.
According to Balu, a union leader in Madurai, if these contract and temporary workers are regularised by the government, they would be entitled to all benefits of permanent staff, including nearly 200 percent higher wages.
While workers demand permanent employment and an end to privatisation, government representatives often respond by asking, “Did we bring in privatisation?”
For example, Chennai Mayor Priya, after meeting protesting workers on 12 August, said:
“During the previous AIADMK government, 10 zones of Chennai Corporation were privatised. Why was this injustice not opposed then? Why was there no protest? Now two of the remaining five zones (5 and 6) have been privatised, and work is ongoing to privatise the other three zones as well.”
But who really introduced privatisation of conservancy work in Tamil Nadu?
“It was during the 1990s, when MK Stalin was Mayor of Chennai, when privatisation of conservancy work was first introduced in the Corporation. Today, after 35 years, he has returned as Chief Minister and is implementing full-scale privatisation,” Balasundaram said.
A research paper published in Economic and Political Weekly in June 2006 by Krithika Srinivasan notes that in 1996, the DMK government directed the Corporation of Chennai to introduce private participation in solid waste management (SWM) to improve efficiency and quality of services.
To facilitate privatisation, the state exempted the Corporation from the provisions of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970.
Despite strong protests from worker unions, the final contract was awarded to Onyx in 2000 for three zones (6, 8, and 10) for seven years (2000–2007). After this contract ended, in 2007, under the same DMK government, a seven-year concession was awarded to Neel Metal Fanalca (NMF) to handle multiple zones.
In the following phase, Ramky Enviro Engineers emerged as a major contractor, most recently securing a seven-year performance-based collection contract in February 2021 for the northern zones.
Meanwhile, in October 2020, Urbaser Sumeet was brought in for seven zones (9–15). Today, the city follows a mixed model where Urbaser Sumeet and Ramky manage most zones, while the Corporation handles a few directly.
Balasundaram says both Dravidian parties, the DMK and the AIADMK, are equally responsible for advancing privatisation of conservancy work across Tamil Nadu.
“To ensure minimum wages for contract workers, we staged multiple protests. In 2016, a Wage Committee was formed, which studied conditions across corporations and municipalities and submitted recommendations in 2017. But they were never implemented,” he added.
The committee recommended a dearness allowance (DA) rate of ₹37.25. However, after the DMK returned to power, a new Wage Committee was formed in 2023, which recommended a lower rate of ₹31.
The federation challenged this in the Madras High Court, which ordered the government to suspend the new recommendations and implement the old ones. But the government has neither issued an order nor implemented the court directive so far.
Balasundaram also pointed out that incentive payments promised to conservancy workers for their service during the COVID-19 pandemic have still not been disbursed to many.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
