Doctors asked to be part of solid waste management work at a time when their services are required to check spread of swine flu

What a waste!

Doctors asked to be part of solid waste management work at a time when their services are required to check spread of swine flu

In what may sound as completely illogical and absurd, doctors at the PMC have been asked to take charge of the garbage collection and disposal schedule planning work, instead of being actively involved in controlling the swine flu epidemic. As a result, 14 doctors, who have been appointed as Ward Medical Officers (WMO) at as many ward offices are now busy organising vehicles for the same.

Clearly, the PMC has been ignoring the Supreme Court and State Government directives since the last four years. According to the directive, the Supreme Court had asked for the appointment of an Environment or Public Health engineer to deal with the solid waste management issue. Incidentally, former PMC
commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi had agreed to appoint them in the PMC Standing Committee meeting three years ago.

A Ward Medical Officer (WMO) under the condition of anonymity said, " About 90 per cent of my time is spent on the work related to solid waste management, and I hardly find work according to my profile. PMC is the only civic body where doctors are doing inane jobs despite strict orders from the government."

Medha Kulkarni, PMC Corporator and member of the Standing Committee, said that the Urban Department of the state government has already issued directives by a GR (Government Resolution) to PMC (1006/CR 53/UD16/dt 26 Oct 2006) to make an appointment of Environmental Engineer of Public Health Engineer.

"The PMC has not even interviewed anyone for the post," she charged.

M S Devnikar, Additional Commissioner PMC, had taken the responsibility to fill up the posts with Environment engineers instead of WMOs.

"The decision was taken on August 20 last year, when the city had started getting affected by swine flu. We will work towards it soon," he assured.