News
Ambedkar University Delhi faces student's protest for discriminating the sanitation workers.
- by Anushka-
- Jun 07, 2019 10:57
Students of Ambedkar University Delhi (AUD) have been protesting for the biased dismissal of the sanction workers of the university.
On June 3rd hundreds of students were seen protesting for the Safai Karamchari, in the Kashmere gate campus. The workers who were fired were pushed out because they were protesting against manual scavenging. The protest was fair enough as manual scavenging is against the constitution, and is a offence. Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Rehabilitation Act, 2013 clearly states about how such discrmination is a offence. A offence so serious that its non-bailable, and can conclude with an imprisonment of upto 5 years. Still the authorities suspended a whole lot of 52 workers, just because they were asking for their fundamental rights. Some of the workers have been serving the institution for almost 5 years even more. Even in 21st century there are almost 70,000 workers who are still forced to such jobs related to sanitation.
The institution have a committee known as, DBAC Dalit Bahujan Adivas Collective. DBAC submitted a written application to the VC of the varsity and also to the Registrar about the openings of sewers manually. But the revert of this application is still unknown, it wasn't made public.
According to Akunth, who is a member of Dalit Bahujan Adivasi collective,
“Workers wanted to retain their employment in a dignified manner, one of their superiors who behaved with them in casteist manners also issued a written apology.”
This incident is not the first of its kind, earlier also the varsity have been shadowed with the ghost of discrimination. Prof. Bidhan Das was entitled as the investigation professor in this case, but he too was found practising the absurd tradition of discrimination. Another authority of the institution, Join DR Estate Division, Mr. Lokesh Gard was caught using apologetic words to the workers. He was heard saying
" I don't even like to talk to people like you"
for which he was made to apologize later on the same day.
The whole protest and its reason started in mid-2018, when students saw workers opening the sewers. After seeing this scene, students hailed out a protest but were not supported by the workers themselves, as they lacked the knowledge of their fundamental right over which the fear of losing their job added the resistance.
After educating the circle of workers, the protest was once again resumed. But the authorities of the institution in one slam fired 52 workers, and were asked to leave the campus under 15 minutes. This frantic decision was intentionally let out at this particular date. As the students are on their summer vacations and so the student hindrance will be very less in the firing. But still the campus was again echoed with the strong voices protesting.
Seeing this the authorities called a meeting on June 4th with the workers who were fired. The varsity agreed on employing 33 fired workers among whom 10 are woman. Only the female workers will be working in the Kashmere Gate campus, rest will be scattered over other campuses.
The workers were initially contracted with Sulabh International, an NGO that failed to provide them with Employees State Insurance or Provident Funds benefits.
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