Hyderabad: Even as the city’s roads get inundated and water enters homes, the green-eyed monster has struck the civic staff, who are responding to rain-related emergencies. The reason: the attention that the Disaster Response Force (DRF) is drawing. And this is linked to its uniform.
The monsoon action, instant road repair and emergency teams of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) have begun demanding unique uniforms to help people spot them and to stand out when their pictures are published on media and the social media.
The Disaster Response Force – which has a total of 13 teams working in the city with each team consisting of four people who work in three shifts – walk away with all attention, and glory.
The GHMC has 152 monsoon action teams, each of which comprises six members.
The civic body also has 20 five-member emergency teams, apart from the additional sanitation staff, who are deployed in case of emergency.
GHMC sources said that zonal commissioners and additional commissioners were feeling insecure because of the attention the DRF teams were getting. There was also fear that others would get demotivated. There are 4,600 staff members working in other emergency response wings.
To overcome the problem, heads of other teams have sent several proposals to D.S. Lokesh Kumar, commissioner, GHMC, seeking uniforms for their teams. After heated confrontations between various unit heads of the GHMC, behind closed doors, the issue was taken to K.T. Rama Rao, minister, municipal administration, who instructed officials to have a unique uniform for all workers, who could then be identified by the nature of their work. He also ordered a dress code for higher authorities.
