ISLAMABAD: Employees of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) on Tuesday staged a massive protest demonstration against the management for what they said, “privatization of the sanitation directorate.”

CDA Mazdoor Union (CBA) led the protest outside the civic agency’s headquarters.

Union General Secretary Chaudhry Mohammad Yaseen and President Aurangzeb Khan along with other representatives addressed the protesters and said they would protect the rights of the employees.

The protesters chanted slogans against the privatization and demanded the protection of employees’ rights.

Protesters say sanitation and other departments should be provided with modern machinery, vehicles and equipment

Mr Yaseen other leaders stated that the union is the true representative organisation of the employees, but it was not taken on board for the privatization decision.

They said that the workers of the Sanitation Directorate play a vital role in keeping Islamabad clean, green and beautiful which is why the federal capital is counted among the cleanest and most beautiful cities in the world. However, they said that it is deeply regrettable that attempts were being made to render these very workers unemployed under the guise of privatization which is completely unacceptable.

They demanded that instead of privatizing, the sanitation and other departments should be provided with modern machinery, vehicles, equipment and the required manpower to make the city’s cleanliness and civic facilities system more effective.

“Privatization is not the solution to the problems; rather, it will ruin the livelihoods of thousands of families and negatively impact the institution’s performance,” they said.

They demanded the chairman CDA and the administration immediately initiate negotiations with the elected representative union of the employees and withdraw the decision to privatize sanitation and other departments. They also called for the implementation of court decisions regarding the allotment of plots to employees as well as the immediate payment of pending dues including Eid and Easter allowances.

It is relevant to note here that CDA is going to outsource cleanliness and garbage collection from both urban and rural areas of Islamabad and recently it received opened financial bid for the Rs17.9 billion project.

The bid of joint venture (JV) of Atlas Pak Waste Management Company turned to be lowest with a difference of Rs380 million.

However, CDA officials said that later some contradiction was pointed out in the main bid and detailed rates, therefore, the matter was referred to consultant for checking the bids.

“After getting clarification from bidders, hopefully this matter would be resolved in the next few days,” said an officer.

CDA has around 1100 regular sanitation workers, who will be put at the disposal of a contractor – a point which is being opposed by the CDA union.

On the other hand, CDA’s management has been stating that regular jobs and all rights of these employees will remain protected.

However, it seems, the CDA management has not taken the union on board and because of this communication gap, there is confusion amongst the employees.

“CDA’s management should take union on board and regular employees should not be posted outside of city areas and when contractor will hire its staff, he should given preference to people of rural areas for their service there,” said an official, adding that some years back CDA had outsourced both urban and rural areas and that contract expired in February last year.

“Now once again, the CDA is going to outsource both urban and rural areas, so outsourcing is not new but employees should be taken on board,” said an official.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2026