Give details of PPE sellers, HC tells Navi Mum civic body

The Bombay high court (HC) on Tuesday directed the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) to give details of the companies and prices at which the civic body had

The Bombay high court (HC) on Tuesday directed the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) to give details of the companies and prices at which the civic body had purchased personal protective equipment (PPE) and hand sanitisers and how often they were being replenished in a bid to contain the Covid-19.

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The court was further informed that due to the callous approach of the officers of the corporations many workers had contracted the virus and had to be quarantined, hence directions should be issued to the corporation.

The single bench of justice S J Kathawalla, while hearing a petition filed by the Samaj Samata Kaamgar Sangh through video conferencing, was informed by advocate Bhavesh Parmar that the grievances of around 6,277 employees was represented by the petition. Parmar submitted that around 3,261 workers were involved in solid waste management and day-to-day road cleaning and were doing so with their bare hands. The workers were not provided enough water to clean their hands and in the name of hand sanitizers were given two-three drops before and after completing their duty.

The bench was further informed that though the workers were reporting to their jobs regularly, they were not provided with any protection from Covid-19 virus such as hand sanitizers, hand gloves, face masks, PPEs etc on a regular basis. They were provided with low-quality face masks and hand gloves on one occasion. As a result of this, there were few positive cases among the workers while over 24 persons were placed under home quarantine and at quarantine centres.

The advocate for the corporation, however, refuted the allegations and said that all personal protective equipment including hand gloves, face masks and hand sanitizers were being provided from time to time to all the workers. However, when asked as to when the protective equipment was last provided to the workers the advocate could not respond.

The court then directed the corporation to file an affidavit setting out the number of face masks, hand gloves, hand sanitizers which were in their possession prior to the lockdown, the subsequent additions to that, along with the detailed breakup of the distribution carried out from time to time till date. The court also sought the names and addresses of the individuals/firms/companies from whom the hand gloves, sanitizers, face masks, etc were purchased and at what price. The corporation was also asked to disclose on oath, how often the face masks, sanitizers and gloves etc provided to the workers were replaced/replenished and posted for further hearing on Thursday.