The attempts of the representatives of the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board Workers Union to hand over their petition to the district collector failed today as she was busy with the electoral duties.

Mondays are usually public grievance day. The collectorate had already issued a notice that, with the poll code coming into effect, there will be no public grievance days on Mondays, but it looked as if the information had not reached all. Many people were seen returning from the Collectorate, disappointed.

Meanwhile, the employees of the TWAD board, in a press release, said that they were not provided with selection grade, yearly increments, and special grade pays for many years now. They also demanded that the Employee’s Provident Fund (EPF), Employee’s State Insurance (ESI), and the ESI identity cards should be provided to the more than 150 contract workers who are working in the seven water distribution schemes in various places in Coimbatore.

“Without ESI identity cards, the workers cannot utilize the health benefits. This has been a long pending demand,” one of the workers said.

He further added that the workers have been putting pressure on the higher officials for the past six months to help them provide the benefits, but said that their requests have been denied by the government for long.

“When we threatened to go on a one day strike in December 2015, a higher official assured us that the issue will be sorted out, but nothing happened,” he said.