W@WWomen at Work
Text and pix by Aamna Mahboob
It is a common sight in Colombo to see women in green giving out parking tickets. Regular pavement parkers have even formed friendships with these women, who have been working beside the road for more than 20 years.
These ladies (Traffic Wardens) are the last batch appointed by the Municipal Council.
These women enter the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) office at Darley Road wearing long green frocks and leave for different destinations with ticket books in their hands. Later they can be seen at parking lots in areas such as Hospital Square, Borella and Kollupitiya.
They were appointed during the rule of the late President R. Premadasa. “We were all very young when we joined the job as Traffic Wardens”, said 52 years old Mallika Dabare who has served in this field for about 25 years as a Traffic Warden.
She said that she is quite satisfied with her job, adding that “something is better than nothing”.
The total number of Traffic Wardens are 173. Working as a Traffic Warden in Colombo under the CMC, most of the wardens have studied up to O/Ls and almost all of them have family and become grandmothers.
“I started doing this job before I married and am still working”, said G. Namali (48), working at Fort. She has been working as a warden for more than 28 years; her husband is doing his own business at Pettah. She said that sometimes, vehicle owners or drivers do not pay despite having got the parking ticket.
The Traffic Wardens are allowed 45 holidays a year. Their working hours are from 7AM to 5PM. They have to sign the attendance register.
49 year old Chandraleka Balasundaram from Kandy has four children. She works at Narahenpita and has served as a Warden for more than 22 years. She said that she liked her job very much.
The parking charges for one hour are rupees 10 and rupees 80 are charged for a vehicle parked for the whole day.
“I am not scared to do the job as a Traffic Warden, if someone scolds me, I scold them back”, said M. T. Tissera (57) when asked about the behavior of people using the parking area.
She said that it was hard to live with the pay which she is getting. About her career she said that on the advice of her friend, she joined the present job in 1985. She is working at Borella. She is supporting a large family of eleven and living with a polio affected husband. Prior to joining the present job, she was serving in Good Shepherd Convent up to the age of 21.She said that she had to give up her education after primary school.
Their pay is 13000 a month and during the festival they get a bonus. They can take loans from the CMC which will be cut from their monthly salary.
“I do not think the government will continue this service,” said Kumar Karunaratne Administrative Officer at CMC Darley road. He explained that the Traffic Warden service was started in 1980 and in those days, there was not much traffic. There was ample space to park but now Colombo is too crowded and there is no place to cope with the ever increasing number of vehicles.
In case the CMC continued the Traffic Warden system, then it will have to devise some traffic plan and reserve places for parking , he opined. However he said that the cost of Traffic Wardens is a burden on the CMC. He further explained that the continuation of Wardens job was not feasible economically. Presently the expenditure on pays and perks for these 173 Traffic Wardens surpasses the income, he concluded.
Under the new parking scheme, parking of vehicles in different areas has been restricted due to security reasons and the Traffic Wardens of such areas have been taken off and remain at Dalery Road office at present and get a pay without doing any service, he added.
The problem presently being faced by these wardens is that “NO PARKING” signs have been put almost at every place by the Traffic Police due to security reasons. At some places where there are No Parking signs, when they get the vehicle parked and ticket issued, the police appear and order them to remove the vehicle. This creates an embarrassing situation for them and the vehicle owners also scold them
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