Devanand Sharma, Madan Pal
The 33-day strike of the 5000 contractual workers of the Health Department of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) ended after the Mayor of Delhi announced an agreement with them. They were on strike since September 29, 2025, under the leadership of Anti Malaria Ekta Karmchari Union (AMEKU). Currently known as Multi-Tasking Staff (Public Health) or MTS (PH) (erstwhile Domestic Breeding Checkers (DBCs) and Contractual Field Workers (CFWs)), they are central to the public health operations in Delhi having the responsibility of checking mosquito breeding and thereby controlling the spread of deadly diseases such as dengue, malaria and chikungunya.
The key demands of the strike which are now agreed upon for implementation in a month were the following:
• Job regularisation with uniform grade pay and variable DA to all
• Compassionate employment for family members of employees who die in harness
• CL/EL benefits
MCD officials and the political leadership of BJP who were dilly-dallying on the issues have accepted to specifically earmark funds for the regularisation of these contractual workers. The workers have been arguing from day one that the additional budgetary expenditure for doing this is merely 0.24 per cent of the annual budget of MCD. It was clear that the triple engine BJP government’s commitment towards the exploitative contract system – as sanctified in the four Labour Codes - was the main hurdle.
Previous Struggles
The five-day long strike of 2023 had forced the Health Department of MCD to issue an order dated June 6, 2024, regularising 3049 Domestic Breeding Checkers (DBCs) through the creation of the MTS (PH) posts.
The implementation of this agreement by assigning a grade pay and variable DA got delayed due to various excuses floated by the MCD like the delayed formation of Standing Committees for approving the above posts.
This year the Supreme Court also dismissed the MCD petition against regularisation following the 2019 verdict of the High Court. A fair implementation of the High Court order of 2019 mandates that the DBCs are entitled to the same monthly emoluments as being paid to Food Hygiene Beldars with effect from the dates from which they are working regularly without any break, i.e. from the respective dates in the years 2012/2013.
33-day Strike
It was clear that the inept political leadership of the BJP and the officialdom has pushed the employees to go on strike. The Unions which have called for the strike had earlier made a number of consultations with the Public Health Officer, Additional Commissioner (Health) and Standing Committee Chairperson for the whole period of July-September to arrive at a consensus, but failed. The DBC/CFW workers were forced to resort to a strike while Delhi was again under the grip of dengue and malaria. The attitude of the MCD officials in tri-partite conciliations was also non-cooperative which drew the wrath of the Labour Commissioner as well.
A Committee comprising of the unions, councillors of major political parties and officials was announced by the BJP Mayor on October 14, 2025. The committee members were sympathetic to the workers’ demands in the first meeting itself which happened after ten days of its constitution. There was no written agreement which was agreed upon even after its second meeting. The continuous strike and sit-in by the workers in front of the Civic Centre was addressed by Comrades MA Baby, Amra Ram, Arun Kumar and Tapan Sen during this period. Com. Brinda Karat met the Delhi Mayor seeking urgent intervention in the matter.
Solidarity Actions & Arrests
CITU Delhi State Committee organised a protest demonstration on completion of one month of the strike on October 29, at Jantar Mantar. In spite of the denial of permission by the Delhi Police the demonstration had the participation of hundreds of workers, students, youth, women and other sections. 20,000 pamphlets were also distributed in Delhi by the districts / unions exposing the triple engine BJP government’s attitude towards the demands of the MCD workers.
On October 30, Delhi Police under the Union Home Ministry had forcibly removed the MTS (PH), DBC-CFW workers from the protest site in front of the Civic Centre. More than 2000 arrested workers were taken to Patel Nagar, Anand Parbat, Azadpur, Bawana, Ranjeet Nagar, Narela, ITO and Kamala Nagar police stations. In fact their continued sit-in in front of the Civic Centre hadn’t disturbed even the flow of traffic or any public disturbance leave alone any law and order issues to justify an intervention of this sort from the Delhi Police. It led to widespread condemnation from all quarters.
The third meeting of the committee took the issues of MTS (PH) workers separately and concurred with the workers demand to send it separately as a budgetary requirement to the Delhi Chief Minister. The committee has handed over its written recommendation agreeing with the above demands and the Mayor announced that the salary for the strike period won’t be cut.
This heroic strike action by the 5000 contractual MTS (PH) employees has come as an inspiration for the working class struggles in the national capital.
