A day in the life of Chennai Corporation sanitary inspector

CHENNAI: Just as they thought the initial Covid-19 wave had died down, sanitary inspectors of the city corporation, who are on ground fighting the virus day in and day out, find themselves caught in the middle of a second wave. After a brief period of respite last year, the inspectors are back on their toes, fitting into their arduous routine.

A typical day begins at 7 am for Rajesh Kumar*, a sanitary inspector working with the Chennai Corporation. As  dawn breaks, Rajesh logs on to the internal Covid-19 portal, where every inspector is informed of the new cases in their corresponding wards.

“The number of positive cases per day, of late, ranges from around five to six, to sometimes around 10 to 11, in each ward. I have about 60 streets in my ward, so it’s lower; some of my colleagues have up to 120 streets under their watch and they have to handle a higher number of cases,” said Rajesh. By the time he gets home from work, it’s 7.30 or 8 pm.

Every alternate day, they have meetings with other corporation officials to review the situation in their respective zones. Once they get to know about new cases from the portal, they call the residents to verify address, check symptoms, other details of primary and secondary contacts, and whether or not they need assistance to get to a hospital, in which case, a ‘108’ ambulance is arranged. 

Throughout the day, they have to keep an eye on the portal for alerts.“We have to arrive at the possible source of infection for every Covid-positive patient. We then have to report it to our seniors (health officers) at the zone apart from logging in all the key details in the portal, said Senthilnathan*, another sanitary officer.

“Even if they are at the hospital or under home quarantine, we speak to them everyday to see how they are doing and if they need anything,” he added. They also take care of disinfecting homes of those infected. However, compared to last year, their work has become easier, they said.

“Last year, when we started out, we did not know what we had to do because the virus was a new phenomenon then. Now, the process is more streamlined. Though the work is exhausting, we know what to do,” said a sanitary inspector from Kodambakkam zone. “Our families are also at peace because we are vaccinated,” he added.

(*Name changed)