Madras High Court refuses to quash Greater Chennai Corporation resolutions for outsourcing conservancy work

The Madras High Court on Wednesday (August 20, 2025) refused to quash the resolutions handed by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) to outsource conservancy work in Zones V (Royapuram) and VI (Thiru. Vi. Ka. Nagar). However, it directed the Corporation to barter with the personal employer to make sure that the short-term employees obtain their last-drawn wages or extra.

Justice Okay. Surender handed the orders whereas disposing of two writ petitions filed by Uzhaippor Urimai Iyakkam, difficult the 2 GCC Council resolutions. The choose stated, the query of retrenchment of conservancy employees wouldn’t come up in any respect, as argued by the petitioner organisation, since their providers had not been terminated and they’d be absorbed by the personal employer.

The instances had been filed fearing that the month-to-month wages of the employees would get diminished significantly in the event that they get absorbed by Telangana-based Delhi MSW Solutions Limited, which had bagged the contract for sanitary work within the two zones. However, in his counter affidavit, GCC Commissioner J. Kumaragurubaran had asserted that the employees would truly receives a commission extra by the personal employer.

In an in depth counter affidavit, the Commissioner had said that the outsourcing of conservancy work to personal concessionaires was not new, and it had already been achieved in 11 out of the 15 zones within the Corporation through the years. In all these zones, the concessionaires had absorbed the self-help group (SHG) short-term employees serving the Corporation as conservancy employees.

Stating that 975 short-term conservancy employees have been serving in Zone V and that 1,059 of them have been working in Zone VI earlier than the work was outsourced to Delhi MSW Solutions Limited, the Commissioner stated, the personal contractor had floated a particular goal automobile known as Chennai Enviro Solutions Private Limited and had begun absorbing these short-term employees.

He additionally stated the personal entity requires 3,809 employees and it had already recruited 1,770 of them, apart from wanting to soak up 2,034 SHG employees on a precedence foundation. He said round 275 SHG employees had already been absorbed and joined obligation too, and the corporate was keen to supply a welcome bonus of ₹3,000 per worker, as a goodwill measure, to all those that be a part of until August 31, 2025.

“The second respondent [Delhi MSW Solutions] is issuing appointment orders to the employees with a better pay than the Greater Chennai Corporation,” the Commissioner asserted. He stated the price to firm to be incurred by the personal entity for each employee was ₹20,136 per thirty days and that they’d obtain a web wage of ₹15,357 per thirty days, aside from a number of different service advantages.

Insurance advantages

He stated, the workers could be entitled to group private accident insurance coverage for ₹11.52 lakh, group time period life insurance coverage for ₹1 lakh, workers deposit linked scheme for ₹3 lakh, and ₹2.015 lakh for unintended demise and ₹55,000 for pure demise. Further, they’d get 12 days of informal go away, 12 days of earned go away, double wages in the event that they work on nationwide holidays and marriage help of ₹20,000 for both self or kids’s marriage.

It was additionally delivered to the discover of the courtroom that Delhi MSW Solutions would difficulty appointment orders to each particular person employee to make sure job safety and implementation of all relevant labour welfare legal guidelines.