BLOs roped in for door-to-door survey worried about safety, want adequate safety gear

New Delhi:

New Delhi:

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Deployed as front line workers in the fight against Covid-19, booth level officers (BLOs), who have now been roped in for the door-to-door screening that began on Friday, say they are ready for the job but need adequate protective gear to keep themselves from getting infected.

BLOs are grassroots-level workers -- mostly drawn from government school teachers and aanganwadi workers -- engaged in voter identification and other election-related exercises . Delhi has more than 13,000 BLOs.

So far, only BLOs living in containment zones were assigned the task of contact tracing work along with Accredited Social Health Workers (ASHA) workers and Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANMs).

Now with the door-to-door survey starting-- as per the Union home ministry’s recommendations -- all BLOs have been roped for in the mammoth city-wide exercise that has to be completed by July 6.

The BLOs say they have to visit at least 300-350 houses during this time and there are chances they may get infecting and put their families at risk.

Sarita Singh (33), a BLO who teaches at a government school in east Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar said, “We have been visiting houses and making calls to people in containment zones. In the name of protective gear, all we have is a mask and sanitiser. I fear carrying the infection home. At least, we should get face shields.”

A day before, Singh said, a BLO on duty in a nearby area died of Covid-19. There is a lot of anxiety among workers. Santosh Kumar, a BLO and a Sanskrit teacher in Mandawali who was on duty in a containment zone and had just turned 60 on June 21, died of Covid-19 on June 24.

“My father was due to retire on June 30. He was a heart patient and applied for leave. But he was put on duty. They were not given any protective gear except for a mask. He developed Covid symptoms on June 9. A private doctor said it was viral fever and gave some medicines. On June 15, he had breathing difficulty and we rushed him to the clinic where we told his oxygen levels had dropped and he needs to be shifted to a hospital. Aday after, his report came positive and he died on Wednesday,” Mukesh Kumar, his son, said.

Earlier this month, two government teachers and a principal working on ration distribution work and at hunger relief centres died of Covid-19. Last month, a municipal corporation teacher and a security guard on Covid duty died.

District officials, however, said all ground workers who make home visits, including ASHA, ANMs and BLOs, get masks, gloves, shoe covers and face shields. So far, these have been given one time.

Sumit Kumar, a lab assistant, said he will cover at least 1,200 people in his area, which will mean at least 400 houses. “We have been working all this time without any safety. We have been asked to collect material such as notes and thermal screening guns from the office. I hope they give us some safety gear as well,” said Kumar.

A senior Delhi government official said, “For all the workers, protective gear has been procured and is being distributed. In some areas, it will start tomorrow as the survey is yet to take off in some places.”