Aurangabad: The civic administration, which heavily relies on the waste pickers deployed at various sites for sorting dry waste, has taken no efforts to provide toilets for them, much to the inconvenience of women workers who have to relieve themselves in the open.The Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 stress on the legitimate integration of the informal waste pickers into the waste management system.According to its statement in the high court, AMC took the help of the waste pickers to undertake secondary segregation at Padegaon, Harsul Kanchanwadi and Chikalthana. These workers manually sorted non-biodegradable waste from the mixed garbage dumped at the sites. The workers are currently instrumental in helping the civic body collect, transport, segregate and process waste.Even the new waste processing plant at Chikalthana has no provision of a toilet, putting women workers at unease who devote 7-8 hours of the day in sorting dry waste. The idea of setting up a toilet facility has not struck the civic body in the last five to six months during which it has been taking help of the informal waste pickers.One of the workers at the Chikalthana site said that they have no option but to relieve themselves in the open and take a co-workers along as a cover. “The civic body does not provide us with any benefit. Working with waste is not easy. We don’t even have the authority to question them,” said the worker who wanted to remain anonymous.Meanwhile, AMC claimed that they were working on the problem. Head of solid waste management cell Nandkishore Bhombe said that they were planning to set up toilets at the processing sites. When asked as to what provision was being made till the plan was materialised, Bhombe said that the municipal commissioner has taken cognizance of the situation.“As a temporary arrangement, we have asked the contractor to put up precast toilets at the processing plants in Chikalthana and Harsul,” he said.

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