A contractual labourer employed in BMC's Solid Waste Management department, Sumati Devendra, 29, committed suicide on Wednesday morning by hanging herself at her home in Nehru Nagar, Vile Parle West, allegedly for not getting any work and wages
Members of Kachra Vahatuk Shramik Sangh outside BMC headquarters on Thursday with deceased labourer's body. Pic/Atul Kamble
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A contractual labourer employed in BMC's Solid Waste Management (SWM) department, Sumati Devendra, 29, committed suicide on Wednesday morning by hanging herself at her home in Nehru Nagar, Vile Parle West, allegedly for not getting any work and wages from the civic body.
Members of the Kachra Vahatuk Shramik Sangh stormed the BMC headquarters with Devendra's body yesterday around 4.30 pm. "It was obligatory on part of the BMC to provide her work every day," said Milind Ranade, 55, general secretary of the Sangh. According to him, the civic body had stopped giving work to and paying Devendra and 130 other labourers for the last six months.
Ranade also pointed out that Devendra had been part of a group that had approached the industrial tribunal in Bandra for a declaration that they were not contract staff but employees of the corporation, and should, therefore, get wages of a corporation worker and not that of a contractual worker.
"Her arrears from February 2015 to November 2016 amounted to Rs 1 lakh. Furthermore, her PF was deducted from her salary but not deposited in the PF office. We took her body to the BMC office because she is a civic employee, and it was because of BMC that she lost her life," alleged Ranade.
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