City Buzz: New vaccine recommendations | Black fungus worries | Pune Metro… and more
City Buzz: New vaccine recommendations | Black fungus worries | Pune Metro… and more
Walk through testing kiosks in Gurugram. Pic: SRL Diagnostics/Twitter
Vaccination numbers continue to dip
As states struggle with a shortage of vaccine supply, vaccination numbers across the country continue to drop and remained under 20 lakh for the sixth consecutive day this week. On 20th May, 92 districts reported zero vaccination. The Centre has once again reassured states that vaccine supply is being ramped up but will take some time before it becomes a smoother process. The government is expecting the drive to pick up from July, while the entire adult population, which would need 188 crore doses approximately, may be expected to be vaccinated only by the year-end. Delhi, Maharashtra, Assam, J&K, Tamil Nadu have officially reported the problem of vaccine shortage.
India Covid crisis: Robots deployed to clear choked lines in Hyderabad
Web Report/Hyderabad
Image: Twitter
The robots are sent into the sewer lines and remove silt and solid waste from the lines.
‘Sewer crocs’ are being deployed in Hyderabad to clear choked manholes and sewerage lines, as a growing number of civic workers have tested positive for Covid-19. The robots are sent into the sewer lines and remove silt and solid waste from the lines.
According to an official of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage Board, the robotic cutting system disintegrates and flushes out blockages in sewer lines. “It is designed to make use of a water jet from a machine to spin the turbine at high speed and cut the roots and blockages and sediments,” an official was quoted in the media on Saturday.
Three years after Hyderabad got machines to end manual scavenging, sickness and degradation endure
While machines reduced the death rate among sanitation workers, fewer than 3% of them became entrepreneurs. 2 hours ago Two workers of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board cleaning a manhole during the lockdown in 2020. | Almaas Masood/ Article-14
As he stood hunched over an open manhole, Venkatesh manoeuvered a high-power water hose connected to a little truck that was too small to enter the dank, narrow lane, as many work areas for sewer workers tend to be in Hyderabad.
A nervous man in his 30s, Venkatesh directed the jet of water downwards to clear a choked sewer. Four years ago, he would have to descend its dark, grimy depths and clear the block with a stick and hand, risking injury and possible death.
Delhi is trying to end manual scavenging by using sewer cleaning machines. Are its efforts working?
Two years after the project launch, little appears to have changed for the capital’s sanitation workers. The Delhi government s new machine at work in Srinivaspuri. | Salik Ahmed/ Article-14
It is an hour before dusk, and a blue vehicle of a small truck’s size is backing into a congested lane in a southern neighbourhood in India’s teeming capital city. Dust-caked cars and motorcycles line the road in Srinivaspuri, under a menacing mesh of electricity wires.
Two sanitation workers guide the driver as he reverses the vehicle, inch-by-inch, dodging a low-hanging wire here, a vehicle’s rear view mirror there and steers slowly to the end of the narrow lane. When he parks, the workers remove long iron hooks from the vehicle and use them to lift the lid of a blocked manhole, revealing a bubbling, filthy drain.
Hyderabad: GHMC employee booked for installing illegal water connection
By News Desk| Edited by Sakina Fatima | Published: 16th April 2021 5:02 pm IST
Hyderabad: Rajendra Nagar police on Thursday registered a criminal case against a Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) employee for illegally installing water connections.
Inspector of the vigilance wing of Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWS & SB), Tirupathi said that Anjaneyulu, who had earlier worked as a works inspector in the Budwell section of HMWS & SB and now works in GHMC, Rajendra Nagar constituency, had installed illegal water connection to a property.
“We have noticed his involvement in installing the illegal water connection after we conducted a raid on a property at Shiva Sai Colony, Rajendra Nagar. Based on the property owner’s confession, we booked Anjaneyulu. He committed the offence when he was a works inspector in the HMWS&SB on deputation,” Tirupathi told Times