COVID-19 Pune: Muslim and Christian organisations oppose tender for contractual services for burial of deceased patients

Pune: Municipal Corporation has assured Mulnivasi Muslim Manch (MMM) and Christian Charitable Trust (CCT) that the tender process for hiring services on a contractual basis for the burial of deceased COVID-19 patients will be revoked.

MMM and CCT organisations had opposed the tender process being carried out by the civic body. The organisations held protests on Friday (August 21) at the main gate of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and opposed the tender process. MMM President Anjum Inamdar, CCT President Sagai Nayar, Former Minister of State for Home and present city unit chief of Congress Ramesh Bagwe, Corporator Arvind Shinde, Rafiq Shaikh, Nationalist Congress Party Minority Cell's Iqbal Shaikh, Rahul Khude, Vitthal Gaikwad and other party workers expressed their support to the protests.

Anjum Inamdar, President of MMM said, "PMC had recently released an advertisement in the newspaper regarding the hiring of contractual services for burial of COVID-19 deceased patients. On the contrary workers of MMM and CCT are offering these services for free for the last four months at the burial grounds. But the civic body preferred to hire paid services. We are doing the work with a community-service attitude and at great risk without any insurance scheme or compensation in case of death while working."

"We have buried more than 350 deceased patients belonging to the Muslim, Christian, Lingayat and Telugu community so far. PMC should have thought of our free service instead of getting into the tender process for this work. Several workers have made applications to the PMC to allow them to engage in the free community service for the burial of COVID-19 deceased patients, but those applications are still pending. Do the PMC officials want to discourage social workers and enjoy monetary benefits from the tender process even in the burial of the dead," Inamdar questioned.

"We are glad that the civic body has now decided to revoke the tender process," he added.