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Garbage pile-ups like the one in Sakchi’s Gurdwara Basti will be a thing of the past once the JNAC team gets cracking. Picture by Bhola Prasad
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Time is cleanliness. Cleanliness is health. And Jamshedpur has, fortunately, learnt the lessons before it is too late.
Stalked by vector-borne diseases for more than a month and stung by an official toll of 10, the city’s civic guardians have, finally, drawn battle lines. The war begins on Friday, when 150-odd men and five machines will be seen in action.
The Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC) — entrusted with the upkeep of civic amenities for a population of over 500,000 in urban slums outside Tata Steel command areas — is introducing detailed and daily duty roster for sanitary inspectors, health officials and civic workers. An ad hoc induction of civic workers is also underway to tide over manpower crisis.
The moves are aimed at ensuring round-the-clock monitoring, which will be see surprise inspections by the JNAC special officer and district health officer.
JNAC special officer R.N. Dwivedi said they were acting on the directive of East Singhbhum deputy commissioner Himani Pande who had prodded proactive measures in the wake of monsoon maladies.
This diseased season, cerebral malaria has claimed seven lives and diarrhoea three in the city and its outskirts.
“We are reviewing our strategy of working. Henceforth, we will introduce duty rosters in all the six zones for every staff, including sanitary inspectors. They will have to jot down the date, time and area cleaned and disinfected every day. The roster will be checked by the health officer twice — in the morning and in the evening — on all working days,” Dwivedi said.
Until now, the JNAC had four sanitary inspectors supervising various civic works such as cleaning of garbage and solid waste management in the six designated zones. The inspectors then reported to JNAC health officer Santosh Kumar. However, no cycle was followed or time management done. This resulted in garbage piling up for more than a fortnight in certain areas, while in others the exercise interval was a minimum of four-five days.
“With the duty roster in place, all JNAC areas will follow a time-bound cleaning exercise,” Dwivedi said.
Currently, the JNAC has 75 full-time employees and 30 ad hoc workers employed since June.
The urban local body has now asked six NGOs working under it to recruit 55 more workers on ad hoc basis for extra thrust to its sting operations such as spraying of DDT and larvicides.
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