Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) sweepers have been engaged in a difficult battle to win since Wednesday morning. The enemy is very light and difficult to manage. Just when the sweeper feels that she has controlled the enemy, a gust of wind sets the enemy free. Though ultimately the winner will be the worker, it comes at the cost of the worker’s health.
The use of coloured paper strips during the Ganesha procession has become a huge headache for the sweepers to clear. Though the GHMC is using suction machines to make it easy to clear these papers at the immersion site on Necklace Road, the routes leading to the immersion site across the city have been flooded with these paper strips which is very difficult to clear.
For a momentary feeling of excitement watching the strips flying in the air when they are blown high into the air, the health of GHMC sweepers is being compromised.
GHMC workers were seen handling this task since the wee hours, and this could continue well into the evening. Even as they have been sweeping and making heaps of these papers on the roadside to be put into their bags manually, the wind keeps tossing them into the air, and the cleaning process comes back to square one. Then, there is a repeat of the same task.
Like in the mythological story of Vikram-Betaal where King Vikramaditya keeps capturing Betaal (the ghost) again and again, but every time the latter escapes and climbs a tree, only to be arrested by the former again; the coloured paper strips are difficult to arrest.
Speaking with Siasat.com, a GHMC sweeper hoped for a good rain, which would make their task and life a little easier.
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