BENGALURU: The New Indian Express carried a six-part series highlighting problems faced by pourakarmikas in their daily lives. With the series ending on Tuesday, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner Manjunath Prasad shared with us his take on the condition of pourakarmikas. Excerpts of the interview follow.
Q: Are you aware of problems faced by pourakarmikas in getting their salaries?
A: There were problems earlier as they were part of a contract system, which had been the practice for the last 30 years. But, from December 2017, we took a big decision and all the contract pourakarmikas were absorbed into the BBMP. We are paying salaries directly to their account.
Q: But there were delays in payment?
A: There will be glitches in every new system. We have overcome these, and we have sorted it out. All BBMP pourakarmikas will be paid on time hereafter.
Q: What is your solution?
A: We have put salary details of every working pourakarmika on our website along with details such as the ward they service and their bank account details. In next two to three days, we will be doing ward mapping, after which you can click on any particular road, and the name of pourakarmika and their details will be made available to the public.
Q: Will you recruit the pourarakarmikas who lost their jobs?
A: We have made it clear, we are not going to recruit the 3,000 pourakarmikas who were not part of our system. Some of them were bogus claims, having two or more bank accounts. We cannot pay them.
Q: For a city like Bengaluru, which has more than one crore population, will 18,000 pourakarmikas be sufficient?
A: We have details of every single road and collection of garbage from households. Our pourakarmika numbers were decided based on scientific data. The Outer Ring Road and other major roads will have mechanical sweeping machines. We cannot use people to clean these roads as these are heavy traffic stretches.
Q: Do you think pourakarmikas here are paid well?
A: As per my knowledge, BBMP is paying a salary of around `15000, which is the highest in the country. No other metro is paying that big a salary. We know their value.