Coimbatore Corporation is in the process of making public the details of domestic breeding checkers (DBC) and conservancy workers.
Sources familiar with the development said based on orders from Commissioner Raja Gopal Sunkara, the Corporation would, in a day or two, upload details of 200 domestic breeding checkers and all conservancy workers.
The Corporation had engaged on contract 200 workers as domestic breeding checkers to control mosquito breeding and check dengue outbreak.
Likewise, the Corporation would also share on its website the details of conservancy workers, including those it had engaged on contract through contractors. The information that the Corporation would share would include their phone numbers, the ward and the area within the ward to which it had assigned them among others.
The sources said this was to let the public know the persons who would be working with them and check if they were present or absent for work. If workers did not turn up for work, the public could directly call the workers or the sanitary supervisor of the ward concerned or the sanitary inspector.
This, the Corporation believed, would not only bring in transparency in administration but also improve civic services.
In the absence of such information the public was at a loss to report issues or have their grievances redressed.
The other objective that the Corporation tried to achieve through the step towards improved transparency was to make it difficult for contractors supplying workers to manipulate the system, fudge figures on the number of workers on duty or terminate workers at will.
This would also give job security to the workers on contract, who often complained of provident fund deduction from wages without being able to get the attendant benefits.
The sources also said that the decision to make public the workers’ details followed a suggestion from the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis. For, around ₹ 2 crore was lying unclaimed in accounts linked to conservancy workers with the Employee Provident Fund Office in Coimbatore.
The other objective that the Corporation hoped to fulfil with making public the details was to tick a few more boxes in the annual cleanliness exercise for cities, Swachh Sarvekshan , to gain more points, the sources added.
