Of its total strength of 1.05 lakh, 6,825 tested positive for virus, 243 succumbed; solid waste, health departments worst hit
This picture has been used for representational purpose
Around six per cent civic employees contracted Covid-19 while fatalities were recorded at only 0.2 per cent. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has an approximate strength of 1.05 lakh employees, of whom 6,825 tested positive for Covid-19 in the past one-and-a-half years. BMC also lost 243 staffers to the disease.
A number of civic employees had to be on the ground for many months, away from their homes, during the initial phase of Covid-19—from April 2020 to August 2020. During this time, a number of them tested Covid-positive. In terms of fatalities, the civic solid waste management department and health department were the worst-hit with 54 and 43 deaths, respectively. These were followed by the security department with 14 Covid deaths.
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The recovery rate among civic employees is high and of the 6,825 who contracted the disease, 5,886 have recovered. The remaining 696 are yet to resume their duties as they are undergoing treatment. A civic official said, “There is a special leave that is granted for civic employees who tested Covid-positive. To avail this, they have to inform us and that is how we update our data. But whether they have recovered or not will only be informed once they resume their duties. These 696 employees are on Covid leave and are yet to resume work, but we cannot say if they are active patients or not.”
The civic body has decided to compensate for the death of its frontline workers who lost their lives fighting the virus on the ground and will be paying R50 lakh to the families of each of the deceased. BMC will also offer jobs to one immediate family member of all deceased staffers. Of the 243 fatalities, 222 death certificates and documents have been submitted to the civic body for the compensation procedure. Of these, compensation has been granted to 128 families already while the remaining are in process. BMC is yet to receive the documents for 21 deaths.
Explaining the process, Deputy Municipal Commissioner Milin Sawant said, “The process is such that the applications are first sent to the Central govt and the Centre has so far approved compensation to only 20 employees’ families so far. Others that were rejected have been compensated by us.” BEST employees, too, were affected by Covid-19 as they have been ferrying frontline workers during the lockdown and now other citizens, too. There were about 3,561 cases out of which 3,435 have been recovered and 97 deaths have been reported.
5,886
No. of civic staff who recovered from Covid
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