MCG to track sanitation staff using GPS-enabled smartwatches

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) is planning to track its sanitation staff through GPS-enabled smartwatches to ensure their attendance at their designated

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) is planning to track its sanitation staff through GPS-enabled smartwatches to ensure their attendance at their designated areas of work, officials said.

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In July, around a dozen sanitation workers were given these smartwatches on a trial basis. MCG officials privy to the matter said that the feedback of the trial was positive and hence, they have decided to extend the coverage to all 8,000 sanitation workers gradually. Besides, the MCG is also attaching GPS machines to all sanitation vehicles.

“The smartwatches have been extremely useful in the tracking the 12 sanitation workers as it gave us constant information of their movement and helped us keep a check on whether they were reporting to their designated areas of work. Now, we have decided to extend this to all the sanitation workers working under the MCG and then subsequently, cover other workers, if a need arises. Initially, around 600 sanitation workers will be given the smartwatches and gradually, it would be handed out to all,” a senior MCG official of the health wing said.

For the procurement of smartwatches as well as developing an integrated software for the purpose, the MCG has floated a tender in excess of Rs 20 crore last week, said the official.

“The feedback of the trial was positive and hence, we are looking to cover more sanitation workers with smartwatches. The MCG is committed to ensuring that all civic works are catered to, and completed in a timely manner,” said Vinay Pratap Singh, commissioner, MCG.

The MCG had decided to use these smartwatches after receiving complaints from residents that sanitation workers were failing to turn up, especially in Covid-19 containment zones, and that waste was not being collected for more than a week.

The use of GPS-enabled smartwatches has led to protests by workers against public bodies in several cities in the past. In March, the union of sanitation workers of the Chandigarh municipal corporation protested against its use. They carried out a similar protest in October as well.

In September, sanitation workers also protested outside the Noida authority office for using smartwatches.

Naresh Kumar Malkat, the secretary for the Haryana Nagar Palika Karamchari Sangh and a sanitation supervisor for the MCG, said that whenever the civic body starts distributing smartwatches, sanitation workers in Gurugram will also protest against this move.

“The smartwatches should be applicable to all MCG employees and not limited to just the sanitation workers. The MCG also needs to realise that most sanitation workers will not have the technological advancement to understand its functioning. They need to organise workshops explaining sanitation workers the way the smartwatches operate, step by step. We don’t expect that the MCG will take any steps in this regard and hence, we too will protest against the move when the distribution starts,” said Malkat.