TIRUPPUR: Officials in the rural development department have sought more sanitary workers to implement the ‘Namma Ooru Superu’ scheme.
Speaking to TNIE, Tamil Nadu Rural Development Officials Association (TNRDOA) - Tiruppur secretary K Senthilkumar said, “The government launched the ‘Namma Ooru Super’ campaign, and demonstrated the collection and separation of waste on August 15.
It was explained that the drive will have a new schedule for cleaning and segregating garbage and will continue till October 2. But there is already a scarcity of sanitary workers in the district. There are 256 village panchayats in the district. Depending on the size of the panchayat, sweepers numbering 2-4 are employed. Based on these, around 550 sweepers are deployed across the district.
Apart from this, six sanitary workers are deployed by each panchayat. While the sweepers are paid a consolidated pay Rs 6,000 per month, sanitary workers get Rs 3,200 per month. As these are very less pay for physical works of sanitary activity, we are unable to use them for ‘Namma Oru Superu’. Besides, no fund allocation has been made for the scheme.”
An official from the District Rural Development Agency said, “We have received several petitions and personal requests from several panchayat officials about the issue. We have sent the representation to the higher officials and I believe appropriate action will be taken in this regard.”