Safai kamdars on contract go on strike at SSG Hospital

VADODARA: Around 100 safai kamdars of city-based SSG Hospital went on a two-day strike starting from Saturday. The safai kamdars, who work on contract basis at the state-run hospital, halted work demanding that their salaries should be hiked.
"The government provides the contractor around Rs 6,500 per safai kamdar, but in turn we are paid only Rs 3,000 by the contractor.We have demanded that the contractor should increase our salaries or else we will not join our duties," a class IV employee Rakesh Solanki said.
SSG Hospital officials, however, said the strike call given by contract kamdars has not affected the administration.
"We have our own work force of over 250 permanent employees who have not joined the strike. The situation is quite manageable," superintendent of the hospital R N Daveshwar told TOI, adding that the hospital management is not interfering in the matter as the issue has to be resolved by the contractor and the workers hired by him.
"We were not informed about the strike either officially or unofficially by the employees. And neither has the strike affected our functioning," Daveshwar said.