April 14th,2020

Topic:- Awareness about waste to combat spread of COVID-19.

What is the news?

• Awareness up, 90% waste segregation target achieved in Punjab.

Context:-

• Heightened awareness about sanitation amid the fear of COVID-19 pandemic has helped the Local Government Department achieve a daunting task of convincing the residents to segregate dry and wet garbage.
• Since the lockdown, the door-to-door collection of segregated dry and wet garbage has jumped from 67 per cent to 90 per cent.
• From densely populated to the posh areas in urban local bodies, mainly in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar and other large cities, more and more people are cooperating with the sanitation workers. At some places, residents are even honouring the frontline soldiers in the battle against coronavirus.
• Nearly 4,100 metric tonnes of garbage is being collected from more than 21 lakh households in the state daily.

Protection for Sanitation workers:-

• Apart from announcing an insurance cover of Rs 50 lakh for the sanitation workers, the retirement age has been increased for the workers who were to retire on March 31. The department has started night sweeping in 17 ULBs

(Source:- The Tribune)