Coronavirus update: Delhi grapples with waste as restrictions affect pickers

Covid-19 update: Sanitation staff find it difficult to report for duty as transport has been reduced to a trickle, many do not having curfew passes and many societies have banned them from entering their premises in an attempt to reduce contact with the outside world.

Waste collection and disposal — one of the most essential services in a metropolitan city — has been hit under the 21-day lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Coronavirus update: A hospital staff hauling a waste disposal trollley, at Lok Nayak hospital. (Sanchit Khanna/HT PHOTO)

In some areas, while door-to-door collection has been suspended and alternative arrangements have been worked out, there are still a few places where collection is an issue.

Sanitation staff find it difficult to report for duty as transport has been reduced to a trickle, many do not having curfew passes and many societies have banned them from entering their premises in an attempt to reduce contact with the outside world.

In north Delhi’s Ashok Vihar, sanitation workers did not come for the first few days of the lockdown for lack of clarity over who are allowed to travel and who are not.

“Initially, workers did not come and we had to call up the local councillor to work out an arrangement. Now, we have a garbage collection vehicle that moves around in the colony and people need to come out and dispose of the waste,” said H C Gupta, president, Federation of Ashok Vihar residents’ welfare association.

According to Yogesh Verma, local councillor and deputy mayor, North Corporation, while employees above 55 years of age have been given leave in order to be protected from the contagious disease, the others come from neighbouring towns like Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Gurugram, and either do not have curfew passes or transportation to come to work in Delhi. “We have been helping them in getting their curfew passes made,” said Verma.

At many places, sanitation staff complained of being harassed at the hands of the police for not having curfew passes.

Sanjay Gehlot, President of the Akhil Bharatiya Safai Mazdoor Sangh, said, “Our work anyway involves numerous hazards but it’s even tougher now with the police not allowing us to cross the border to reach our work stations in Delhi. In a lot of instances, the police have refused to acknowledge our municipal identification cards and some have been beaten up for insisting.”

In south Delhi’s Defence Colony, residents said that the RWA here had asked the sanitation staff to not report to work after the lockdown was announced. Bhavreen Kandhari, a resident here, said, “The staff with a private company employed by the SDMC used to come to pick up garbage door to door. For a few days, waste was not collected. Later some of them called us and we dialled the police. By Friday, 50% of the staff had come back and more are expected to join in.”

The RWA office bearers, though, denied it. “Nobody told the sanitation staff not to come. Their auto-tippers and rickshaws are also welcome. Garbage is being picked up daily,” said Major (Retd.) Ranjit Singh, president, Defence Colony RWA.

Kamal Kant, a worker employed with East Corporation, said, “We are even going to the localities where there a lot of quarantined homes and collecting garbage from dhalaos without boots, gloves or masks.”

According to Chitra Mukherjee, who heads the Advocacy and Outreach programme at NGO Chintan, as per the United Nations (UN), waste collection is an essential service. “We already have a virus challenge at hand, let’s not create more medical challenges for ourselves. Besides, these (sanitation workers) are poor people who are already losing livelihoods. We should be supporting these people, and not pushing them to the edge further,” she said.

Meanwhile, civic officials said that the frequency of auto-tippers deployed by the three municipal corporations of Delhi -- north, south and east -- to collect garbage from each lane, has also gone down with many of their safai karmcharis not reporting to work.

The North Corporation said they picked up 3,500 tonnes of garbage from their area on Thursday, as opposed to the general 4,000 tonnes daily. However, officials said the garbage is lesser also because markets are closed, so the littering is less. Around 80% of their tippers are working and 60% safai workers coming to work.

The South Corporation said they picked up 3,100 tonnes of waste on Thursday as opposed to the regular 3,600 tonnes daily while the East Corporation said they collected 2,700 tonnes of trash compared to the regular 3,000 tonnes daily.