No respite for outdoor workers amid scorching heat
CHENNAI: Amid the surge in temperature in the city and the prevalence of intense heatwaves, the vendors, drivers, essential workers, and cleanliness workers have no other choice but to brave the sun to earn for living.
The Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) on Thursday forecast that the temperature is likely to spike to 41 degrees Celsius in the city.
Additionally, heat wave conditions are likely to prevail at many places in the North interior districts of Tamil Nadu, the RMC said.
According to the RMC weather bulletin, the maximum temperature is likely to be 2-4 degrees Celsius above normal over the interior Tamil Nadu for the next four days from May 3rd to May 6th. It may go above normal by 3-5 degrees Celsius over many pockets in northern districts of Tamil Nadu during these days, read the weather bulletin. Whereas a few pockets over the plains of the north interior districts will see 41-44°C.
Humidity is likely to be about 3050% in the afternoon hours and 4075% during the rest of the day over the plains of interior districts and 50-80% over the coastal areas during the next four days, the bulletin read.
DT Next interacted with some of the workers who work outdoors, especially drivers and vendors, to know about the impact of scorching heat. Harikrishnan, a MTC driver opined, “As I have worked as a driver for more than 15 years, driving in the summer has become a normal process. It would be more difficult for new joiners as they are not used to the heat and temperature. The working time is 16 hours.
During summer driving through the city is difficult but the journeys to Kilambakkam and other places are comparatively better due to the winds.”
Most of the staff DT Next spoke with said that their employees provide them with butter milk and water to beat the heat during summer.
“The duty is a total of eight hours with four hours of break in between and we are provided with water and buttermilk to withstand the scorching sun. It would be better if we were provided with cooling helmets. The current helmets which we get have more weight which adds to the difficulty of working during summer,” said Raja Sekhar, a traffic policeman.
Explaining the fewer possibilities to shift to another work, G Vasanthi, a sanitary staff said, “For a very long time we have been doing this work and due to age we are unable to find another work, so we have no other choice but to work in simmering heat”.
Opining that it would be better if corporation sanitary workers were provided with food apart from buttermilk, R Karthik, a sanitary worker, added, “Our work shift is from morning 6 am to noon 2 pm. All we need is more avenues with trees that provide shade.”
Commenting on the summer-related health issues, a security worker in a private firm complains about skin-related ailments and headaches due to dehydration. I get frequent bouts of headaches due to regular exposure to the sun and it’s a nightmare during the Kathiri season of summer.