NMC suspends two sanitation staff, acts against 81 workers after surprise dawn check in Nagpur

The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has begun cracking down on employees and officials who were negligent in keeping the city clean. On the instructions of Municipal Commissioner Dr Vipin Itankar, the solid waste management department has suspended Anoop Tambe, sanitary inspector of the Dhantoli zone, and Akash Jadhav, a jamadar.

Punitive action has also been taken against 81 sanitation workers. The action has caused alarm among the officials and employees who supervise sanitation work.

The action followed a surprise inspection. The commissioner and other officials carried it out to check the attendance of sanitation workers and the actual state of the work, and a large number of workers were found absent.

The check was held recently at about 6 am in five zones of the city at the same time. It looked at whether workers were present, whether they were at their assigned areas and how the cleaning work was going. The report prepared during the check recorded absences at several places.

In the Dhantoli zone, 14 of 16 workers were present and 2 were absent. In Ward No. 33 of the same zone, the stretch between the Babasaheb Ambedkar statue and Shitladevi Chowk was checked from 6 am to 6.30 am. Of 67 workers there, 57 were present and 9 were absent. The NMC has taken a serious view of this gap in attendance and the lack of supervision.

Figures from the other zones have also emerged. In the Laxminagar zone, 13 of 31 workers were absent, the highest absence among the zones. In the Gandhibagh zone, 26 of 152 workers were absent, in the Mangalwari zone 9 of 29, and in the Lakadganj zone 10 of 51.

The NMC administration has now decided to tighten monitoring of sanitation work. Officials of all zones have been directed to inspect their areas regularly in the morning. Their responsibility will no longer be confined to the office. They will have to visit the field and check the cleaning work and the attendance of workers.

According to the NMC, monitoring of the workers' arrival and departure times in every ward will also be stressed. Work is also under way on a system to involve citizens, so that it can be known whether sanitation workers are reaching their areas at the fixed time.