‘Exempt municipal staff from surveillance’

North Delhi Mayor Avtar Singh on Monday wrote to the Lieutenant-Governor, requesting the exemption of municipal staff from “additional duties”, such as the ‘Corona Foot Warriors’ team recently formed by the Delhi government.

In a recent order, the Chief Secretary called for the constitution of such teams to help with containment and surveillance of possible COVID-19 patients, to be headed by the area Block Level Officer (BLO) and involving MCD sanitation workers.

With a shortage of staff, especially as a consequence of exempting people above the age of 55 from work and with several staff commuting from neighbouring States, the Mayor said that if additional duties were assigned to available staff, it would hamper other work, particularly work of ensuring a check on diseases like dengue and chikungunya.