HYDERABAD, Aug 3: Three hundred employees of Hyderabad city taluka council, except the sanitary staff, boycotted work and staged demonstrations in the compound and on the roof of the council building against the non-payment of salaries for June and July.

Nazim and Naib Nazim of union council-7, Abdur Rauf Daudi and Hakeem Shahmeer, staged a token hunger strike to express solidarity with the municipal workers.

Talking to newsmen, general secretary, the municipal workers union (CBA), Akram Rajput, said that the sanitation staff was kept away from the strike so that the cleanliness of the city should not suffer.

He said that the municipal workers of the three talukas of Hyderabad had not been paid their salaries for June and July but the workers of katcha abadis had not received salaries even for May.

The angry labour leader asked if the government expected the poor workers to live on air. He was equally critical of the Hyderabad District Council for doing nothing for the workers.

He said that the agency people in plain clothes were frequenting the taluka council office and threatening the workers, especially those belonging to the minority community, with dire consequences for observing protest.

Rajput said that the petrol pump owners had refused to supply diesel to the vehicles of the taluka council as their outstanding bills of Rs2 million had not been paid by the council.

He demanded that since the government had miserably failed in paying salaries to the municipal employees, the octroi collection should be returned to the local councils to meet their expenses.