Vijayawada: WSES staff highly stressed with steep targets

Vijayawada (NTR District): Steep targets in collecting user charges on garbage collection are making both the secretariat staff and the people suffer with extreme pressure. The daily targets are leading to clashes among the employees and public.

Besides this, some employees have died either by heart attack or by suicide. According to information, so far three secretariat staff died in the State as they were unable to bear the pressure by the higher officials.

It is already known that for the first time in the State, all the urban local bodies have levied user charges on garbage collection at the behest of the State government. The government had introduced levying of user charges on garbage collection in June 2021. First this was implemented in 45 urban local bodies, including 16 municipal corporations and 29 municipalities as a pilot project. Later, it was implemented in all the urban local bodies - 17 municipal corporations, 78 municipalities and 31 Nagar panchayats across the State from October, 2021.

As per the orders of the Municipal administration, the civic bodies concerned fixed the tax on garbage as Rs 30 per month for each household in slums and Rs 120 per month per house in non-slums. Rs 500 is charged per month from small restaurants; Rs 300 per month from chicken shops; and Rs 2,500 per month from movie theatres. Similarly, wholesale shops are being charged Rs 200 per month and Rs 15,000 from five-star hotels.

Despite stiff opposition from the public against garbage tax, urban local bodies (ULB) have succeeded in collecting huge amounts. The municipal employees and staff of all the civic bodies have collected Rs 83,94,83,381 so far (till December 20) as garbage tax.

The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) is ahead of all the ULBs in terms of collecting garbage tax, by collecting Rs 19,08,50,320 from the public so far. Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) authorities collected Rs 10,19,49,971 as garbage tax.

Likewise, Kakinada Municipal Corporation officials collected Rs 4,49,48,387; Rajahmundry municipal officials collected Rs 4,49,48,387; Srikakulam municipal corporation authorities collected Rs 3,47,41,550; Eluru Municipal Corporation authorities collected Rs 2,83,16,012; and Nellore Municipal Corporation collected Rs 2,78,17,930 as garbage tax in the past 18 months.

Meanwhile, all urban local bodies in the State have entrusted garbage tax collection duty to Ward Sanitation and Environment Secretaries (WSES) despite having revenue and sanitary inspectors.

This allotment is against the WSES employees' job chart. Daily targets for collecting garbage tax were given to these employees, making its their main responsibility.

As per the data, there are around 3,500 WSES employees working across the State. These employees must work all days without taking a leave even during emergencies. Targets have been given to the WSES employees for collecting user charges from households. It was alleged that if the staff fail to achieve the targets, they have to pay / add money to the collection in order to fulfil the target. This made the employees highly stressed and three WSES employees died during the past one year. Bakoori Chandra Mohan, who was working at GVMC (Visakhapatnam) Zone - 4 died of heart attack on December 6. Randheer Nayak, working in Kadapa district, and another employee allegedly died due to work pressure.