MUMBAI: With BMC officials facing fatigue from fighting Covid-19, the Congress has demanded that officials and engineers from agencies like SRA, Mhada and
PWD be deployed on Covid-19 duty.
In a letter to chief minister
Uddhav Thackeray, Congress corporator Ravi Raja, who is the opposition leader in the BMC, said there were thousands of staff members in Mhada, SRA and PWD who should be pressed into service for Covid-19 work.
“The BMC staff has been on Covid-19 duty for over a year. They are all feeling massive Covid-19 fatigue and hundreds have been infected with Covid-19 and many have died. Engineers and staff from agencies like SRA, Mhada and PWD have been kept out of Covid duty, but now, in the wake of the second wave, there is a manpower crunch and officials from these agencies must be put on Covid duty,” he said.
“The BMC’s sanctioned staff strength is around 1.4 lakh persons but there are a lot of vacancies. The current actual strength is around 1.2 lakh. So to supplement this, staff from SRA, Mhada and PWD must be pushed into service. They can do non-healthcare work like coordination, war room management and setting up of jumbo Covid centres. The BMC alone cannot do all this work while engineers and officials from other agencies sit at home,” he said.