TRICHY: The Tiruchirappalli Corporation is trying to woo male wards of sanitary workers for its recent cleanliness drive and as many as eight community organizers representing the four divisions, are going from door-to-door persuading them to join the work. At present, around 60% of the 2,000-odd sanitary workers are women and take care of the cleaning process.

Corporation commissioner V P Dhandapani told TOI that they were planning to form male self-help groups on the model of the existing women's groups, consisting of a minimum of 20 members each. These groups will be engaged to do an assortment of cleaning work and will be paid as per the district collector's recommendations. Since the corporation was facing a debilitating shortage of staff in the sanitary division, it has now resorted to roping in the wards of the existing sanitary workers. While the general perception was that there were not many takers for the menial work, the commissioner who took over the reins two months ago sounded very optimistic. "There is a huge response to the scheme and more than 1,500 people have come forward to work with us," he said. In the first phase, the corporation will employ a total of 160 sanitary workers who will be distributed equally among the four divisions.

Earlier, the corporation had opted to outsource the cleaning work, but the plan did not take off on expected lines. The outsourcing plan also faced opposition from some quarters as they suspected it might lead to financial corruption. The new commissioner embarked on the mass cleaning with the available workforce that was not busy in the afternoons, but since the additional work did not entail any additional remuneration, it too did not bring in the desired results. The sporadic cleaning was temporarily given up after ministers visited the city. However, Dhandapani said that half of the city was covered in the last two months and that the remaining places would be cleaned in the next two months. He added that the work would be sustained with the new workforce for three months to start with, and that the scheme would be ratified in the forthcoming council meeting on July 31.

Moreover, the recruitment of the 160 people would be done through what the commissioner termed as the internal tender process. It is also an attempt to augment the income of a sanitary worker's household. They will be used for an assortment of corporation work such as cleaning the wards wherever the regular sanitary workers cannot cope up as well as maintaining streetlights, parks, roads and the underground drainage system. They will be directly recruited on a contractual basis and will be given priority when the regular recruitment drive takes place in future.

Once they form a group, they will also be guided to get bank loans to start any self employment venture and community organizers would help them in this regard. Those who perform well would be assigned various pending works of the corporation on a contractual basis. They will be paid a daily wage of Rs 158 and all the aspiring workers would have to register with the corporation first, the commissioner explained.

The corporation had on December 21 last year, passed a resolution to outsource garbage cleaning to private parties for the first time. The places to be covered were the 100-year-old congested Gandhi Market and the Central Bus Stand and then it was planned to be extended to the rest of the city. But after the Trichy District Sanitary Workers Union took a strong exception to the proposed outsourcing, the idea was kept on the back burner.