Contract workers in Wards 60, 61, 62 and 63 in East Zone of Coimbatore Corporation were in for a shock on Saturday after seeing that the civic body used garbage vehicles to deliver their food.
The Corporation has been delivering breakfast to the contract workers identified as domestic breeding checkers and engaged in anti-malarial work and in the pandemic for conducting door-to-door survey and mobilising people to fever camps.
On Saturday morning, when the workers were at the East Zone office in Singanallur, they, to their utter disbelief, saw a garbage vehicle with the food meant for them. The Corporation supplied idli, vada, chutney and sambar or kichadi, vada, chutney and sambar to the workers after they marked their attendance at the ward offices concerned, said E.R. Selvam of the Tamil Nadu Annal Ambedkar Sugadhara Thuppuravu Matrum Podhu Paniyalar Sangam, a workers’ union.
It was then that the workers learnt about the Corporation carrying their food in the vehicle used to carry waste. It appeared that the Corporation had been using the waste carrying vehicles for the past two months since the COVID-19 cases increased and they were engaged in control measures, he added.
Corporation Commissioner Raja Gopal Sunkara said after the incident was brought to his notice and he obtained a video footage, he had asked the East Zone Assistant Commissioner to call for an explanation from the sanitary inspector concerned.
He had also tasked the Assistant Commissioner, Personnel, with inquiring into the incident based on the video footage. Based on the outcome of the inquiry, the Corporation would decide on the further course of action.