Not all women celebrate

KOZHIKODE: The women’s day is set to be celebrated with much fanfare on Tuesday by  different social service forums, NGOs and the state government, but  there is  no focus on the suffering women, including Kudumbashree sanitation workers, Supplyco packing employees, She Taxi drivers, railway cleaning staff  and the textile sales girls.

During  the last few years,  Kudumbashree sanitation  workers have played a major role in preventing the  city from turn into a garbage dump,  but neither the corporation nor the state government has solved their long-pending problems, especially low salaries.  Now the city alone has 700-odd Kudumbashree sanitation workers and they are now planning to stop waste collection in the city until their demands are met.

“For the last four years,  we have been demanding a revision of  salary scale and provision of  basic equipment  for our job, but no action  has been taken so far,”  said Sujatha Sasi, a sanitation worker from West Hill.  The people who speak highly about  Kudumbashree  never see our plight  and highlight our  demands,  she added.

Similarly,  the packing workers of Supplyco who have been working for the last 20 years with the store recently took out for a protest march. They are yet to get a salary hike and are working with  less than Rs 6,000 per month.  

“It was with much fanfare that  She Taxi project was launched in the  state, but  now  I am a victim of the service,”  said M. Girija, a She Taxi driver. “We are yet to get popularity or acceptance among the public and the large amount to be paid as loan is pending,” she added.