Coronavirus: Karnataka civic workers at risk without safety gear

Hubballi-Dharwad Corporation has deployed a special team of civic workers with safety gears to collect waste from homes in which people are under quarantine

One mask a week, 5-10 km walk to work every day and no sanitisers — thousands of pourakarmikas in the state enter the road without adequate safety gear to keep cities clean amid the fight against COVID-19.

From the non-availability of safety gears to lack of access to food and the absence of identity cards, it’s an everyday struggle for them. Only 20% of the civic workers in the state have been given masks, while sanitisers are distributed to 50% of the workers, said Narayana, president of the State Pourakarmika Association.

“I was given a mask last week, I used to wash it after work and reuse it. Two days ago, I bought a new one from a roadside vendor for Rs 30. I can’t compromise on my health this time,” said a civic worker attached with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). He is also concerned about the possibility of handling biomedical waste from a person in-home quarantine. “Waste disposal is still a problem. The quantity of household waste has increased and people don’t segregate properly.”

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This puts compactor drivers and helpers, who directly deal with waste, at risk, as in some places they are forced to segregate them, said Narayana. “The chances of them getting infected are high,” he said.

The BBMP Pourakarmikas Association has given a representation to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority raising concern over four aspects — inadequate safety equipment (including for compactor and auto drivers and helpers), transportation facility for workers, access to food, drinking water and toilets, and separate disposal of waste generated from households where people under home quarantine live. The high court issued an order on March 30 directing the administration to address these issues at the earliest.

While the civic workers appreciate the reduction in work hours by half, they find it difficult to cope — because even drinking water is difficult as they are greeted by shut doors. N P Srinivsalu of the BBMP Pourakarmikas Association, while acknowledging the administration’s measures to give a daily travel allowance of Rs 100 and providing food at Indira Canteens, said that from issuing ID cards to getting safety gear they have to follow it up rigorously with the administration to ensure basic facilities. “In many places, implementation is a problem,” he said.

“All the 17,000 BBMP pourakarmikas were given a mask each last week. We have procured the second lot two days ago. We will distribute them in a day or two. Civic workers should be able to manage with a single mask as they now work for only four hours a day,” said D Randeep, Special Commissioner, (SWM), BBMP. They have been given general safety gear and the BBMP will provide them with advanced gear if required.

“We will soon come up with a strategy to collect masks separately and process them at incinerators. The other measures that the BBMP intends to take include: Creating awareness among workers to handle waste safely and not to take any risk, giving them a list of people in home quarantine, distributing pamphlets with details about personal hygiene and handwashing techniques,” Randeep said. He also said that the BBMP will soon conduct health camps for them.