BMP stir hits civic services

BMP stir hits civic services

The strike was in protest against the alleged manhandling of a BMP tax assessor by Mr Munireddy of the JD (S) and his supporters.

Deccan Herald

Almost all civic services, implementation of several civil works and functioning of the Citizen’s Service Centre came to a grinding halt on Tuesday, as the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) Employee’s Union lay siege to their own offices, protesting the alleged attack on an employee by Jeevan Bheemanagar corporator N Munireddy.

Even before the day’s work began, workers affiliated to the Union locked all offices at the BMP main office on N R Road and later staged a dharna within the premises. They demanded an apology from the corporator as well as his immediate arrest. With BMP workers belonging to all cadres - from Class 1 workers to the Class IV, including drivers and pourakarmikas - participating in the protest, all the services were badly hit. Besides the citizens, the Commissioner K Jothiramalingam too had to face the brunt of the protest as his car driver failed to turn up as usual to drop him to the office.

Hospitals not affected

The services that were affected include tax collection and payment, issue of kathas, hearse van services, crematorium, garbage collection and several ongoing departmental works taken up across the city by the engineering department. However, emergency services rendered by BMP control room and by its hospitals remained unaffected.

According to the protesters, Mr Munireddy of JD (S) and his supporters manhandled BMP tax assessor T V Nagaraj at Jeevan Bheemanagar Assistant Revenue Office (ARO) on Monday afternoon when the latter refused to hand over the Assessment Register which the former had demanded.

Mr Nagaraj was manhandled again before the Revenue Officer of the ward, the protesters further alleged. The Commissioner, Mayor R Narayana Swamy and MP Tejaswini Ramesh on Tuesday afternoon tried in vain to appease the protesters. While the former called for the immediate withdrawal of the protest, the latter stuck to their demands and refused to budge.

Counter dharna

Later in the Council, corporators from all parties took serious exception to the Union’s allegations against their fellow member. Corporators, in fact demanded the Mayor to take disciplinary action against the protesters for organising the protest “illegally.”

Ms Tejaswini Ramesh threatened to launch a counter-protest by the elected representatives if the strike is not called off. “Elected representatives cannot be intimidated like this. We also have the support of people. The workers should call off their protest unconditionally,” she stated.

JD(S) leaders Nanjundappa, Jameel Ahmad, Congress’ Padmavathi, R Ravindra, M Nagaraj, BJP leader Mangala and others sought to know as to who gave the workers permission to stage the protest inside BMP premises and demanded an action by the Commissioner.

However, the Union called off their protest in the evening around 4 pm after BMP’s decision to form a Fact-finding Committee to solve the issue.

BMP CITES FIAT
‘No work no pay’

Bangalore, dhns: Following corporators’ demand for action against the Union, Mr Jothiramalingam announced that one-day salary of all those who were absent from work due to Tuesday’s protest will be cut.

“No work no salary. We will strictly follow the Supreme Court direction in this regard,” Mr Jothiramalingam added.