‘OCW workers laid-off sans notice’

NAGPUR: A group of social activists, on Monday, protested against the alleged abrupt laying-off of 17 workers at the now defunct Gorewada

Water

Treatment Plant (WTP). The protesters flayed Orange City Waterworks (

OCW

) and Nagpur Municipal Corporation (

NMC

) saying they breached the terms of

contract

on which the workers were hired.

The group staged a dharna at Samvidhan Chowk and said they will continue protesting every day until the workers are reinstated at Pench-I, II or III WTPs.

Vishwanath Deshmukh, who led the dharna, said, “The workers are operators and helpers who oversee operations of a number of equipment at the plant. They are working on contract basis for the last 10-15 years. Now without a job, it has become extremely difficult for them to maintain their families.”

The group alleged that the workers’ services were terminated five months ago without any notice. The group further alleged that a new workforce is being employed in place of the workers that have been laid-off.

In response to the protest, public relations officer of OCW Sachin Dravekar said, “The machinery at

Gorewada

was old and had to be shut on July 31 last year especially since it wasn’t able to meet the 24-hour supply demand. The human resource department of OCW had issued a notice to the 17 workers and offered jobs in operations and maintenance in 10 zones of the city. Four of them accepted the offer.”

“Other 13 workers seem to be reluctant to accept the offer. The offer is still open for them if they wish to re-join OCW. Their salaries will remain the same as before,” Dravekar added.

Dravekar informed that there are no vacancies at other WTPs, only filtration capacity has been increased from 145 million litres per day (MLD) to 175 MLD at Pench-II.