Domestic workers in Pune plan for indefinite protest

Domestic Workers in Pune are all set to go on a indefinite strike in protest if payments of Covid allowance and registration with welfare board is not expedited

Barely 5000 of the 80000 or more domestic workers from Pune who have registered with the Welfare Board have received the Rs 1500 Covid relief announced by the Maharashtra government in April 2021.

Thousands of applications for renewal or new registrations with the Board are pending in the Labour Commissioner’s office. Despite several memorandums and suggestions to speed up the process there has been little response from the administration, leading to huge discontent within the domestic workers.

This resulted in a protest demonstration of over a hundred domestic workers from different parts of the city at the Labour Commissioner’s office this afternoon and a delegation met the Additional Labour Commissioner Mr Pol. It delivered an ultimatum that if there is no systemic improvement and additional staff is not deployed to clear the pending applications, the organisation will start an indefinite dharna in front of his office from 22 September 2021.

The delegation also demanded that camps should be organised to register domestic workers located in the different Talukas of the district, and that the Welfare Board should arrange to register domestic workers with the new portal started by the Government of India for unorganised sector workers.

The delegation consisted of Kiran Moghe (President), Saraswati Bhandirge (Secretary), Rekha Kamble (Treasurer), Aparna Darade (Jt Secretary) and CITU Secretary Vasant Pawar, Ganesh Darade, Mohan Pote and others.