The city’s roads were not swept on Thursday morning and garbage was not lifted from, among other places, Boring Canal Road, near Income Tax roundabout and Kidwaipuri, as Patna Municipal Corporation sanitation workers, who are daily wage earners, observed a daylong strike over wages and other issues.

Sanitation work in all PMC circles was affected as a result. PMC authorities said the morning round of sweeping of roads was hit but door-to-door-garbage collection remained unaffected. The sanitation workers called off their strike at 5pm after fruitful negotiation with municipal corporation officials.

“Sanitation work in around 25 wards was hit because of today’s strike,” deputy municipal commissioner Vishal Anand said. “Around 15 of these wards are in the New Capital circle. To our surprise, sanitation work was not at all affected in the Patna City circle. This shows that all 4,000 sanitation workers were not on strike, despite their claims.”

Vishal said the sanitation workers’ demands would be looked into. “The sanitation workers called off their strike only after we assured them that their demands would be fulfilled,” Vishal said. “So far as increasing their wages is concerned, the municipal corporation has decided to raise their demand at the next standing committee meeting. We have, in princple, decided to increase their wages and just want the board’s approval.

“The sanitation workers also asked us for details of 30 months of their provident fund. We have told them that we are going to engage a chartered accountant who will sort out this problem. We’ve also promised them we will consider their other demands.”

Vishal said the corporation had recently taken many initiatives for its regular employees. “We recently started giving regular employees benefits of the seventh pay commission and have also extended family pension benefits from five years to lifelong,” he said.

“The municipal corporation has for long been avoiding sanitation worker’s issues,” Patna Nagar Nigam Staff Union president Chandra Prakash Singh said.

“Recently, 113 sanitation workers were identified who have been working for over 10 years in the corporation. They were supposed to be regularised but no notification regarding PMC’s earlier decision has been issued yet. We have for long been demanding increase in our wages but it, too, has fallen on deaf ears.”

Residents advised the corporation to pay heed to demands of sanitation workers. “The municipal corporation has started door-to-door garbage collection work, which is good, but if the corporation angers sanitation workers, who are the soul of the sanitation programme in the city, we will be left with filth all around. PMC should address sanitation workers’ concerns without any delay,” said Boring Canal Road resident Abha Sharma, a housewife.