SDMC directs workers to sweep roads twice a day

At a time when the heat is driving everyone indoors, the newly formed South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) wants its sanitation workers to work outdoors when the mercury is at its peak.

At a time when the heat is driving everyone indoors, the newly formed South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) wants its sanitation workers to work outdoors when the mercury is at its peak.

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The civic body has directed its sanitation workers to conduct special drives between 11am and 3pm; their normal work hours are from 7am to 11am.

“We sweep roads and collect garbage in the morning, which is a convenient time for us as well as for the residents. But according to the new directions, we have to desilt drains and sweep roads again in the afternoon. How can one work when the weather is so extreme?” asked an SDMC sanitation worker, requesting anonymity.

The sanitation workers said that working after 10 in the morning has become difficult these days, with some workers getting heat strokes.

“These officers document all the orders sitting in air-conditioned rooms and want us to work under the sun,” said another sanitation worker.

However, the executive wing of the SDMC believes the new corporation has to set “new standards of sanitation” and roads have to be swept twice a day.

“There’s too much litter even after the cleaning work is done early in the morning,” said a senior SDMC official.

The sanitation workers have now approached the deliberative wing to withdraw the new orders.

“We’ll be writing to the commissioner to take back the orders. It would be really inhumane to ask the sanitation workers to work at noon,” said Subhash Arya, leader of the house, SDMC.