Bengaluru: Now, pourakarmikas get designer pushcarts
Bengaluru: In order to ease the burden of pourakarmikas, a city based corporate house has come up with easy to use pushcarts. The newly designed pushcarts were inaugurated at Indiranagar on Saturday.
An initiative put forward by Bhaskar Bhat, Managing Director, Titan Company Ltd, so far 41 such pushcarts have been manufactured.
During his morning walks in the area, Bhaskar Bhat used to come across women civic workers struggling with their garbage pushcarts.
“The earlier carts used to work against friction, have metal casters and pourakarmikas found it difficult to drag, push and move them. The nature of their job is difficult and garbage would keep spilling out. Seeing their plight, Bhat put a team together to design quality carts for their comfort," said Ritika Gandhi, one of the designers from Titan's CSR cell.
The designing began two years ago, in collaboration with residents of BM Kaval Resident Welfare Assosciation in Indiranagar 1st stage. Many prototypes that were tested by Pourakarmikas and they needed constant improvements with brakes, tyres, storage, wall height etc, Ritika added.
Sneha Nandihal, a member of the RWA said, "We partnered with them. A lot of engineers in the colony participated in the designing. The Pourakarmikas could be seen with hunches, pushing big wheels with no brakes. This new design is ergonomic."
"We made the pushcarts with high walls, so that the garbage does not spill over. It also has hooks and places to keep their broom, water bottle,” Sneha added. These newly made push carts will cater to Pourakarmikas in BM Kaval, Indiranagar second stage, Defence Colony and Hoysala Nagar RWAs.
They were inaugrated by BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad and C.V. Raman Nagar MLA Raghu.