CMRL workers live in poor conditions sans salary

Chennai: Chennai metro rail has been promising upscale transit and world-class facilities to commuters, but to its own workers, their mantra seems otherwise.

Nearly 1,000 workers appointed on contract basis by Chennai metro are devoid of proper drinking water, safe home and above all, salaries for slogging throughout the day.

Nearly 50 workers at the St. Thomas Mount metro station have been protesting for the past two days for their income, to support their flood-hit family back in Bihar. Moreover, they allege theft almost daily.

“The contractors owe us nearly Rs 2 lakh and gave only Rs 3,000, after working for two months and have been making false promises about releasing the money soon. On top of that, we live in a tiny dark room with dingy walls, broken roof and clogged drainage,” said one of the workers.

He further added that a few miscreants living adjacent to the tenements barge in at night for anti-social activities and have stolen articles worth over 75,000 when they are at work. Officials, however, denied writing to the police.

When contacted, one of the officials said, “Previously, about 150 people were living here. As most of them left, the security guard was removed to cut cost.” He remained vague on the salary issue. Similar is the plight of 800 other workers at Manapakkam working on the underground stretch. Though they are paid salaries, their tenements are supplied dirty water and washrooms never cleaned. 

“About 100 people have left recently after falling ill and the department did not bother to provide any medical help, they did not give salaries either to people who left,” said a worker at Manapakkam.

While the contract period for workers at St. Thomas Mount ends in two months, Manapakkam laborers are here to stay for at least eight months. They rue that the Chennai metro despite allotting huge funds for the project would not provide basic facilities for them.

The officials of Chennai metro maintained that they directly recruited no worker and they are not to be held responsible.