AMC appoints 7 assistant directors to improve sanitation level in city

On Friday, municipal commissioner Mukesh Kumar announced the appointment of seven assistant directors of solid waste management for each zone in the city. The appointees will be directly looking into sanitation matters. Ever since the announcement of the Swachhta ranking for the city by the Ministry of Urban Development, Ahmedabad's ranking has not improved. In 2015, the city stood at 14, which it retained in 2016.

Other cities from the state witnessed drastic improvement. The appointment can also be seen as an ease of burden from the deputy health officers, who were till date looking into sanitation. But according to sources, while taking rounds of the city, the civic chief has found many irregularities in the sanitation level.

The new appointees will also be checking food joints, which were believed to be the spot of direct corruption for health officials. "Most officials took bribes from food joints. Only few units have been raided and samples for laboratory were collected to save many malpractices," said a source at Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC).

Meanwhile, post heavy rains, there was an epidemic kind of situation prevailing in the city. Cases of viral fever, malaria and swine flu were reported on a large scale. This was also considered a failure of effective working. "Health officials were hardly looking in to the health aspects of the city. They were mostly engaged in issuing different food licenses and fixing contracts for the garbage collection," added the source.

Kumar has made this appointment for effective implementation of sanitation program. "During one of his rounds at night, the commissioner found people in food joints throwing garbage on the street in front of him. This is a failure of the deputy health officer who is responsible for the sanitation," added the source.