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        At a time when fresh-out-of-college students are setting records in salary packages, part-time sanitary workers in Chennai Corporation have put up at least 20 years of service drawing a paltry wage of Rs 70 a month (yes, you read it right).

        About 800 part-timers in the Corporation-run schools and hospitals in the city receive a monthly salary of Rs 335 and Rs 70 respectively.

        'We are part- time workers only on paper, we end up working more than eight hours a day without any compensation for the extra work. We draw only Rs 70 a month,' lamented a woman worker at a Corporation dispensary. 'We're not entitled to maternity leave,' she noted.

        In schools, the workers are employed for cleaning of classrooms and their work is supposed to end before the classes commence at 9 am. But, according to a 40-year old male worker, the sanitary workers at schools end up doing all other work.

        Murugammal, 65, joined service as a part-time scavenger for a salary of Rs 6 per month. When she retired in 2003, she never received any benefit from the Family Benefit Fund, however, a sum of Rs 20 was deducted from her salary. The Corporation should consider paying at least Rs 20,000 as in the case of noon meal centre workers on retirement, she said.

        Ranganathan, secretary, Education and Health Department, Madras Corporation Red Flag Union (MCRFU), said the union had called for a meeting of part-time sanitary workers on 28 August at Ripon Buildings. He said the meeting was to take stock of the situation following the promises made by the Mayor

        M Subramanian that the workers would be made permanent for which a resolution would be passed in the forthcoming Council meet this month.

        Speaking to News Today, S Purushotaman, general secretary, MCRFU, said that as per the Tamilnadu Industrial Establishment (Conferment of Permanent Status to Workmen) Act, 1981, it's mandatory to make a worker permanent if he/she completes 480 working days during a 24-month period. But the Corporation, in the case of part-time sanitary workers, had violated the Act. He demanded that the workers should be immediately brought under the pay roll of the Corporation as full-timers. He also demanded that the Corporation should set a minimum wage as Rs 1,500 a month.

        However, the Mayor maintains that all part-timers were paid a salary of Rs 350. The Corporation is considering taking part-timers in the Corporation schools as 'full-timers' on consolidated pay scale first. When asked whether the Corporation had any proposal to fix 'minimum wages' for the workers, he said the civic body can only comply with the laws of the State government. It can't set its own minimum wages, he added.

        To the question of what makes them to stick to the job for the meagre salary, some of the workers said, 'We hope that one day we'll be made permanent workers.'