Pune : 20% of sanitation workers miss work every day in PMC, reveals study. Absenteeism affects cleanliness of city 

Following the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) adoption of the Intelligent Solid Waste Management System (ISWMS) to oversee waste collection, transportation, and sanitation work, it was found that nearly 20% of employees miss work every day, which negatively impacts cleaning tasks.

The PMC solid waste management department has been using ISWMS since December 2023 to monitor sanitation workers and encourage cleanliness inside city limits. 

With an investment of ₹ 17 crore, PMC installed a system in the Local Body Tax (LBT) office to track employee attendance throughout the city.

The PMC solid waste department implemented ISWMS after learning that between thirty and thirty-five employees in each ward office were receiving pay without contributing any work. 

In addition to equipping 700 waste transport vehicles with GPS and radio frequency identification tags, they also gave devices to 10,000 sanitation workers.

Under different Zonal offices, the municipal corporation employs both temporary and permanent workers, such as sweepers and cleaners. There is a supervisor appointed for every 15 to 20 workers.

A senior PMC official said that they get ward-by-ward sanitation worker attendance data under ISWMS. It has been discovered that about 20% of employees miss work every day, which makes cleaning efforts more difficult in many locations.

They have chosen to link salary to ISWMS in order to eliminate manual intervention in attendance, based on the daily review. All ward officers, sanitation inspectors (SI), and deputy sanitation inspectors were instructed to improve cleanliness in their respective areas during a meeting held last week. They are analyzing the number of workers needed in various parts of the city to carry out efficient cleaning tasks using IWMS.