GHMC hunts for special officers for sanitation

Hyderabad: In order to improve sanitation in the city, the municipal corporation has decided to appoint a special officer. Sanitation in the city has been deteriorating in the past few months and the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation reasons this to staff being assigned election duty.

The special officer will apparently ensure improvement in sanitation and also improvement in the city’s swachh rankings.

Sanitary field assistants and supervisors who are supposed to monitor cleanliness at the circle level have been assigned to election duty. The immediate fallout of this is that Swachh auto-tippers have not been collecting segregated waste from several colonies even once in two weeks. According to GHMC sources, Municipal Administration and Urban Development principal secretary Arvind Kumar held a review meeting with zonal commissioners last week regarding the state of city sanitation and expressed his displeasure at the poor state of affairs. Mr Kumar told the zonal commissioners to take immediate measures to improve sanitation.

City mayor Bonthu Rammohan also held a review meeting at which he mooted the idea of special officers to improve sanitation. A senior GHMC official said that since the sanitation staff is deployed on election duty, the entire wing has been paralysed. The additional commissioner, monitoring sanitation, is also on leave.

The official said that the GHMC is now contemplating appointing special officers for intense monitoring of the city sanitation. The officers will keep track of every minute detail including door to door garbage pick-up, eliminating garbage from vulnerable points, lifting construction and demolition debris, ensuring that fogging is done and controlling the stray dog menace.