VIJAYAWADA: With an objective to secure the ODF++ tag, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has appointed members of DWCRA groups to work as Swachhagrahis in shifts to prevent people from urinating and littering on the streets. The civic body maintains 150 odd public toilets across 59 divisions of the city. However, people urinating on roadsides is a common scene. To tackle the menace, the civic body has come up with the idea of appointing Swachhagrahis. The workers will draw rangolis in vacant sites and dirty locations to bring about a behavioural change among the public.
B Mutyalamm, one such Swacchagrahi, was seen guarding the Ratham Centre on Canal Road with a stick and whistle on Saturday. “We are appointed by the municipal corporation to work in three shifts in a day to prevent public from urinating on the streets. People who have the practice refrain from doing so after seeing the rangolis drawn by us. They instead ask how far is the nearest public toilet.”
“Despite the presence of well-maintained public toilets across the city, open urination has become a widespread issue that every resident complains about while accessing arterial roads,” VMC health officer Ch Babu Srinivasan told TNIE on Saturday. Taking a serious note of the issue, the civic body appointed DWCRA women to draw colourful rangolis near 19 spots unpopular for open urnination and identified by sanitary inspectors, he informed. Elaborating further, the health officer said the civic body has designed proposals for constructing 50 more communal/public toilets.
Night shelters
State-level monitoring panel chairman JC Sarma has suggested to the VMC chief to build temporary night shelters at Prakasam Barrage, Krishnaveni, and Durga Ghat B Mutyalamm, on