Keeping 3.75L in slums secure a major challenge for NMC

Nagpur:- The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has a daunting task at hand to protect the more than 3,75 lakh population living in 458 slum dwellings from coronavirus in crowded spaces and unhygienic conditions. Most of the slums are assembly constituencies in the North, South, and East.

“The slums with the most insecurity are in North Nagpur. Many hutments here measure only 8×8 ft and 5-8 people in the house. While NMC had built toilets in most houses under Swachh Bharat Mission, still scores of families share common toilets and public taps. The probability of transmission of coronavirus here is strong, “said Leena Buddhe, director of Center for Sustainable Development. NMC has installed roughly 60 community toilets in slum areas of the city.

Central Nagpur, which is the current hotspot of Covid-19, has the highest slum population in town. The population of slum dwellers here is 1,11,275 according to slum department data from NMC. The appeal of NMC to the slum dwellers to stay home has been largely ignored at 72,322 and 67,411, respectively, by West and North Nagpur.

Here has found flagrant violations of the lockout and social distancing requirements. There were at least 30 kids playing cricket on an open terrain near Dipty Signal. The general refrain of slum dwellers was “Our houses are so crowded that we prefer to stay outdoors.”

Buddhe attributed a rise in corona cases to the slums in the city and cited examples of the Takia Deewanshah areas of Satranjipura and Mominpura. NMC’s greatest obstacle is touch tracking in a highly congested environment where social distancing is almost impossible.

The two immediate challenges before the municipal corporation are rapid and mass testing and having bigger isolation and medical services in the city.

Municipal commissioner Tukaram Mundhe said NMC had used institutional quarantine as a method to suppress Covid-19’s spread. “We’re working on different aspects and finding high-risk pockets around town,” the civic chief said.

The interesting thing about the NMC approach is that it proactively monitors both Covid patients and non-Covid patients. The civic body had done a 23-lakh odd Nagpurians health survey. A campaign has also been initiated by the municipal corporation to meet senior citizens with other medical problems and ask about their health.