The Bombay High Court on Thursdaydirected the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) and the Centre to clear their stand on giving daily allowance and extending the benefits of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) to the contract employees of the civic body, who have been providing essential services during the lockdown.Justice S J Kathawalla also directed the civic body to provide adequate protective gear on a weekly basis to all such sanitation and health contract workers, who have been working through the lockdown.The court gave the above directions after on a petition filed earlier this month by sanitation and health workers of the NMMC, pointed out how thousands of them have been working each day during the lockdown without any protective gear.The petitioners, through the Samaj Samata Kamgar Sangh, a trade union representing around 4,000 contract workers engaged in different departments, including sanitation, health, and solid waste management, had filed the plea in HC earlier this month.They had said that since the workers are all essential service providers, they had been working through the lockdown, putting their own health at risk.The plea said that the workers were cleaning up roads and public areas, going door to door collecting garbage, cleaning garbage, medical waste, and sewage without adequate protective equipment.As per the plea, while the corporation gave a daily allowance of Rs 300 to its permanent sanitation employees on account of transport, food, hand wash, and such facilities, the contract employees did not get any such allowance.Justice Kathawalla had earlier directed the NMMC to submit details of all protective gear provided to the contract workers in light of COVID 19.On Thursday, Tushar Pawar, Deputy Municipal Commissioner of the Solid Waste Management department of the civic body filed an affidavit stating that the claims made in the plea were incorrect.He submitted that the contract workers were being provided with protective gear such as gloves, masks, sanitisers by the contractors who had employed them. Such gear was being paid for, both by the contractors themselves and by the money provided to them by the NMMC.He also said that the Rs 300 allowance was given to permanent employees working during the lockdown.At this, the court directed that the petitioner- workers union, the contractors, and the civic body representatives meet every Monday and all protective gear required by the petitioners for the week be handed over to them."The above statements of the petitioner union and the corporation amounts to the word of one against the other. Since there are 225 contractors, it is not possible for this court, and that to at this stage, to enter into an inquiry and determine as to which side is speaking the truth," Justice Kathawalla said while passing the direction.The court directed that all parties meet each Monday at 10 am for the distribution of the protective equipment."As far as the issues pertaining to Pradhan Mantri Garib Kamgar Package Insurance Scheme For Health Workers Fighting COVID-19' to be extended to the contract workers, as well as the payment of special allowance of Rs 300 per day to them are concerned, the respondents shall file a detailed affidavit," the court said while posting the matter for further hearing on Friday.
