Staff crunch in RMC leads to heaped garbage in some pockets

Gaurav Pandey | TNN | May 1, 2020, 06:05 IST

Ranchi: While Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) is working round-the-clock to ensure cleanliness in the Covid-19 containment zones, many parts of the state capital are reportedly going unnoticed and heaps of garbage are piling up, adding to the woes of the residents.
According to sources, parts of Doranda, Purulia Road, Harihar Singh locality in Morabadi are a few places that are battling with issues ranging from clogged drains and heaps of garbage.
RMC’s city manager Rupesh Ranjan said the civic body is facing a staff crunch and currently, it is short of more than 600 daily wagers. Rajan added that the remaining task force is trying to ensure cleanliness across the city and hoped that the situation will better in the next three days.
He said, “Majority of the staff have been pressed in areas where Covid-19 cases have surfaced from. To sort out issues in a few pockets of the city, we have now planned to divert manpower assigned for commercial areas to residential localities. In next three days, the situation will improve in the entire city.”
He also informed that around 1,800, including drivers, labourers, sanitization and fogging workers, are hitting the streets daily amid the lockdown.
“Our entire force has been divided into four zones across the city and are being monitored by a team of 16 enforcement officers who deploy them in two shifts to carry out cleanliness work in a phased manner. In containment zones, we are working in two shifts.” Besides cleaning activities, cold fogging is also being done in containment zones which will be shifted to other areas keeping in mind the chances of vector-borne diseases.
He added that to prevent infection among sanitation workers, RMC has provided them with protective gears. “We have distributed more than 500 PPEs to our staff working inside containment zones,” Ranjan said.