The State administration and Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) have made clean Doon their priority but the most important component for achieving this is still lacking in numbers. Even with the recent appointment of 500 members in ward sanitation committees in the month of July, the existing number of sanitation workers and other staff is not enough to clean all 100 municipal wards. When asked about this issue municipal commissioner, Vinay Shankar Pandey, said that the MCD authorities are trying to figure out a way to reduce the excess work pressure on sanitation workers and still get the work done.
According to the information provided by municipal commissioner, Pandey, at present, there are 700 permanent sanitation workers employed, 119 members of Nala Gang, 75 workers for night sweeping, 650 members of ward sanitation and five contractual workers. He also said that 500 more members have been appointed by the ward sanitation committees.
When asked about the less number of sanitation workers he said, “We are trying to address the gaps in this matter. It will be solved soon.”
He also said that according to norm, for every 500 people, there should be one sanitation worker. That way, earlier when there were only 60 wards about 2,100 sanitation workers were required. Now with the 100 wards, the calculation will have to be done again.
State president of Rashtriya Safai Mazdoor Sangh, Naresh Vaidh said, “The authorities have been neglecting the need for more sanitation workers for a long time. The workers also are not ready to get appointed anymore as the pay is less and the areas where they are sent are way far. Most of the times what they earn gets spent on their transportation charges. MCD needs to address this issue at the earliest.”
One supervisor on the condition of anonymity said, “I have five sanitation workers for the entire ward. They sweep the roads, they collect garbage, they clean the drains, they do everything, but they are not enough.
Even with overtime it is impossible for five sanitation workers to cover the entire ward area. Sometimes, when they clean a drain once and find it in the same situation few days later even they get frustrated and refuse to clean it again. There are also some practical issues. Many citizens do not even treat sweepers decently.”
A local resident of Majra ward said, “Few days ago, we asked a sanitation worker to clean the drains nearby our house, he directly asked for money. When told that they are being paid by MCD for this purpose, he simply said that he is doing more work than he bargained for. We also cannot comment on that. It appears that MCD has kept their sanitation workers over worked and the workers in turn vent their frustration by not cleaning the drains and streets which ultimately affects common public.”