AURANGABAD: Civic authorities have increased the number of sanitary workers by 130 to maintain cleanliness in the city.
The addition will take the total number of the workers deployed in solid wastemanagement department to over 1,882.
"We are aware that manpower shortage is one of the major hurdles in the solid waste management system and so we decided to add at least 130 workers to our existing team. For this, we will ask 13 self-help groups taking care of the system in the Cidco area to recruit 10 additional workers. A proposal in this regard will be soon sent to the municipal commissioner very soon. If the proposal is cleared, we will have an additional team of 130 which can be deployed in all the zones," VikramMandurke, assistant municipal commissioner, said.
Of the new recruits, the civic body plans to deploy 10 workers each at all nine municipal zones. The remaining 40 will be assigned the task of maintaining cleanliness in the Muslim-dominated localities during the upcoming month of Ramzan.
While interacting with a team of Muslim corporators on Tuesday, Mandurke said that the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) will take special care of localities during the festive season. "The sanitary workers will clean the streets and public areas twice a day during Ramazan," he said.
The AMC has not recruited workers in the solid waste management department for the past 25 years. As of now, 13 SHGs are taking care of Cidco, while one SHG is managing Satara and Devlai.
According to norms, the city needs over 5,000 sanitary workers, but only 1,752 workers are doing the job. Of this number, 1,400 are regular AMC employees, while 352 are from SHGs.
An official said the city was provided with 1,500 bins of 240-litre capacity, 276 of 1,100-litre capacity and 60 skip loader bins. Corporators have been cutting across party lines demanding that authorities strengthen the infrastructure for effective handling of garbage.
