Hyderabad: Sweepers at work in the streets from dusk to dawn are hardly seen these days, though a few are still spotted on the roads in Secunderabad, Tarnaka, L.B. Nagar, Domalguda and a few ot-her localities. It turns out that most sweepers have been asked to stop working at night due to various reasons.
The main concerns over sweeping during early hours of the day relate to dust pollution and traffic congestion. “Dust created by sweeping takes time to settle down, and affects vehicular movement that picks up by 8 in the morning. The number of vehicles keeps increasing, but the the dust takes its time to settle down,” noted city Physics professor Chandrashekhar Reddy.
The streets remained spick and span during the days when the roads were swept in the night. “Early in the morning, we could see neat roads. As the system changed, we see these workers sweeping during office hours, ignoring the traffic and pollution,” said M. Narender an IT engineer.
N. Ravi Kiran, additional commissioner of GHMC said, “There were a few representations by the unions and contractors about the issues being faced by sweepers. Thy complained they met with accidents, but couldn’t give any figures of casualties thereof. Upon receiving many requests, we negotiated with them and gave them the freedom to work in shifts.”
On bigger streets and VIP localities, the dust-rem-oving truck does the work. Wherever trucks are not deployed, sweepers work in the morning shift, apart from doing it in the market areas. The cleaning of markets is necessary at night, said Vinay Kapoor, a GHMC contractor.
