Is corpn commissioner too busy to meet employees?

Coimbatore: Apparently, the city corporation employees don’t seem to enjoy the privilege of meeting the corporation commissioner as and when they wish, even if it is to discuss the issues that they face at work. This forced a sanitary supervisor to take leave on Wednesday and wait in queue with the public to meet corporation commissioner J Sravan Kumar during the weekly grievance redressal meeting. However, as ill luck would have it, neither Sravan Kumar nor his deputy Prasanna Ramasamy turned up for the meeting.
V Murugesan said, “I am a permanent employee with the corporation. I was incharge of mass cleaning activities in the city for the past six years.”
There was a time when he used to lead a team of 20 sanitary workers. But this was when the mass cleaning activities were carried out once a week in one of the 100 wards. As the system was not as effective as it was expected to be, the civic body now carries out the mass cleaning activities in a ward per zone. For this, the corporation had hired more than 1,000 temporary sanitary workers.
“New teams were formed and the sanitary workers, who were working with me, were included in other teams, reducing the count of my team to just two. Along with other teams, we were also carrying out cleaning activities. We, however, stopped receiving the schedule chart – places to be cleaned on a given day. At times, we would ask our superiors to allocate an area for us. On Monday, no one in my team turned up for work and I don’t know what to do,” Murugesan told TOI.
He had in fact urged the concerned officials several times to provide him alternate work, as his team was dissolved and new teams were formed. “In the past one month, I have submitted four petitions - one to Sravan Kumar, two to Prasanna Ramasamy and another one to assistant commissioner of central zone. But I am yet to hear from them,” Murugesan said, adding, “I have been trying to meet the corporation commissioner all the while, but in vain.”
He said there were vacancies for the post of sanitary supervisors and some of the sanitary workers were given additional charges as supervisors. “All I am asking is to put me in any of those wards where the post is vacant.”
On Wednesday, Murugesan submitted the petition to the corporation officials, who were present at the grievance redressal meeting, and they promised him to bring the issue to the notice of their seniors.
Corporation authorities were not available for a comment, despite several attempts to reach them.