Well-trained sanitation workers keep city running
Bhubaneswar: The coronavirus pandemic has not dampened the spirit of sanitation workers here who have been working relentlessly since March 15 to keep the city clean.
The city’s 3,000-odd sanitary workers — sweepers, garbage lifters, sanitary supervisors and drivers of garbage transporting vehicles — sanitise the corona-affected pockets, besides their regular work of cleaning streets and collecting municipal solid waste.
Remarkably, not a single case of Covid has been reported among sanitation workers as of now. Since March, around 350 workers were tested in a random check and all were negative. Ten workers were placed in quarantine for suspected exposure to positive persons.
Eighty percent of the workers are engaged by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) through private agencies. Since the workers are more vulnerable to Covid, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) had engaged doctors and NGOs to train them on safety. The training module included tips on social distancing, personal hygiene, hand hygiene and how to wear personal protective equipment.
Biranchi Nayak, a sanitary supervisor of a private company engaged by the BMC, said the training helped them understand how the virus spreads. “Sanitary workers work in groups. If they are not careful, the virus will spread among them very fast. With Covid cases rising in the city, more caution is required,” he said.
Armed with safety gear such as gloves and masks, not once have the workers refused to attend duty or venture inside a virus-hit locality. “We report to work in the morning and start moving to areas allotted to us for cleaning. By 10, we wind up. The next job is that of the garbage lifters, who use trolleys to collect trash. This is then carted off to the transporting vehicle, which takes it to the dump yard,” said Baidhar Naik, a sanitation worker.
Sharing his experiences with TOI, Naik said, “There is fear among the public. We are very careful while handling garbage or lifting it in the trolley. The waste may have virus in it since many people also throw out disposable masks. We take all precautions.”