Garbage truck drivers now driving ambulances, waste piles up in city
With the drivers of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) garbage compactors and trucks filling in as ambulance drivers, citizens across Mumbai have complained of heaps of uncollected garbage lying on the roadside for days. Following this, BMC's helpline 1916 got flooded with complaints from locals asking to clear the garbage near the residences.
Between June 1 and June 15, a total of 1,724 complaints about uncollected garbage were received on the helpline number.
As the number of Covid-19 cases started surging, the city started facing a dearth of ambulances to ply covid19 patients. To overcome the shortage of ambulances, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking, the civic transport service, converted 43 of its AC mini-buses into ambulances. Besides this, many school vans/buses too were voluntarily converted into ambulances.
However, to ply these buses the question of non-availability of drivers raised. Hence driver of garbage compactors and trucks on essential duties were asked to ply these temporary ambulances.
Daily garbage generated in Mumbai is around 7,200 to 7,700 metric tonnes before the pandemic hit the city. During the coronavirus induced lockdown, the amount of garbage/solid waste generated in the city reduced to half. Hence a number of garbage compactors too were reduced and the plan worked.
However, as soon as the lockdown was relaxed under 'Mission Begin Again', the amount of garbage generated in the city has increased to 5,500 metric tonnes per day.
This has now led to a shortage of garbage compactors plying to collect garbage from many localities in Mumbai.
Due to the lack of drivers for the garbage trucks/compactors, some of these vehicles are parked in various civic building premises in the city.
"Yes, many of the drivers have been put on the ambulance duty. They are driving the BEST mini buses turned ambulances, which is an emergency duty. However, we are now working out on a way to resolve this issue at the earliest. Complaints are from a few areas only. Compactors are regularly collecting garbage in the rest of the city. Also, as soon as we are getting complaints, we are clearing it from the areas within a few hours or a day at the most," said a senior BMC official.