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79 civic teachers to face suspension for not participating in coronavirus survey work
Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has issued notices to another 24 teachers of civic schools and 55 pre-primary teachers (anganwadi teachers) for not taking
Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has issued notices to another 24 teachers of civic schools and 55 pre-primary teachers (anganwadi teachers) for not taking part in Covid-19 (coronavirus) survey work. The teachers are warned of action if they failed to join duty, according to a civic official.
Meenakshi Raut, PMC school board administrative officer, issued the notices to these teachers on Thursday (May 14) directing them to join duty immediately or face suspension.
Additional municipal commissioner Rubal Agarwal had suspended 12 teachers a few weeks earlier for failing to join the survey work.
The notice issued by Raut states that “as these teachers are not participating in the survey work, the health department submitted the report. The school board has issued them a final notice and forwarded the to additional municipal commissioner Rubal Agarwal for final action”.
Vaishali Jadhav, PMC assistant health chief who is incharge of survey work, said, “A total of 944 teams are carrying out door-to-door survey in the city and the fourth round is on. With many teachers remaining absent, it becomes tough to make alternate arrangement for survey work. Some teachers are not joining duty despite giving reminders. Hence, we gave the report to additional municipal commissioner.”
Jadhav said that at least 3,000 staff are involved in the survey work.
The survey work is going on under the leadership of Jadhav in the city. The survey teams include staff from health department, various departments of PMC and teachers from school board.
The survey teams visit houses and take information from residents regarding symptoms related to Covid-19 and also guide them regarding the flu centres set up by the civic body. The teams also carry out contact tracing of Covid-19 positive cases and immediately send them for screening.
One of the health department officer on condition of anonymity said, “As there is panic regarding Covid-19, teachers are avoiding the duties by giving various reasons. As health department staff are aware of the medical situation, they are doing the duty seriously.”
One of the teachers who got the notice said, “For every work, the government involves teachers. The survey work poses health risk. I have small kids and no one is at home to take care of them. Who will look after my children when I am out for survey duty with no maid coming at home? Even parents are not allowed at home to look after kids because of the lockdown.”
