BENGALURU: War rooms across the city are posing a gloomy picture for the past two days. Repeated persuasion by BBMP staffers, nodal officers and even agencies is having little impact. Many are not keen to return to work citing safety, harassment and even embarrassment. But to ensure that citizens do not suffer, BBMP joint commissioners of each zone have told agencies to make sure there is no staff crunch.
But it had little impact as the rumour got around that the 16 minority community staffers, whose names Bengaluru South Member of Parliament Tejasvi Surya had read out at the South Zone war room, were sacked. This left many staffers demotivated and unwilling to work, with others saying there is no professionalism. BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta and South Zone Special Commissioner Thulasi Maddineni clarified that the employees have not been sacked, but their service is on hold till the inquiry is completed.
The heads of Crystal Agency, which is handling South Zone war room, also stated that no one had been sacked. “I am a commerce graduate. I have experience of wo rking wi th three other agencies. Though salary was less, I volunteered to work in the war room as a telecaller because in this pandemic I wanted to help society. My father is an autorickshaw driver. I also drive his auto to feed my family, but now if I am called a terrorist, I don’t want to work with BBMP or any government agency ever,” said one of the 16 employees whose name the MP had read out.
Another person said, “This was my first job. With this image of being a Muslim, terrorist and being sacked, who will employ me now? I took this job as it was lockdown period and my parents are also out of job. Is this how the government treats those who help during the pandemic?” Many others refused to talk. Their family members said they were not keen to send their brothers or sons to work at war rooms because of the ill-treatment they faced.
Meanwhile, to ensure that those working in the war rooms are not demotivated and don’t walk out, BBMP officials are holding counselling sessions, giving them pep talks, organising lunch and distributing sweet boxes.
The managements in some war rooms are also organising iftaar meals. Meanwhile, a BBMP official said, “We are even organising games to keep them happy. Otherwise they are so upset that they are not even interested in answering calls. We are also posting nodal officers to the war rooms t o constantly interact with the staffers.”