For Metrowater staff, it’s another day at the office

Oppili.P@timesgroup.com

Chennai:28.03.2020

Residents across the city may have been forced indoors due to the lockdown, but for staff of Metrowater it is business as usual. The flow of water at the various supply points has to be checked, the pressure maintained, complaints received and attended to, the list is endless.

At the Metrowater office in Taramani, as Raja (name changed), an engineer, steps in, he is offered a hand sanitizer and a mask. After cleaning his hands with the first and putting on the second, he begins a job that he has been doing for years. For the next eight hours or so, he will turn on valves to let water flow into tanks and into pipelines for supply, and other tasks.

Like employees of any other essential service provider, staff of Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB), popular as Metrowater, cannot afford to lock themselves in during an emergency. And the top officials are ensuring that all field level staff and others are provided the necessary safety gear.

R Pukalendhi, area engineer of zone 13, said that since the ‘janata curfew’on March 22, all workers in Metrowater pumping stations were given quality masks and hand gloves.

At the Kilpauk Water Works, the city’s oldest pumping station and one of the biggest, water flowing in from the Red Hills reservoir is cleaned and chlorinated before minerals are added and it is released into pipelines for supply to residential areas.

Metrowater managing director T N Hariharan said employees with health issues such as diabetes, heart ailments and kidney problems have been asked not to come to work. Those on the operations side have been strictly asked to follow all safety measures and to disinfect the area offices regularly.

Vaidehi, another area engineer, said they had not restricted the distribution of masks and glows to their employees and were giving them to contract staff too. For instance, the drivers and cleaners of the nearly 100 water tankers being operated from the Kilpauk Water Works station daily are also provided with masks and hand gloves, she said.

Metrowater authorities are not only making sure that residents in the city enjoy continuous water supply, but are also helping disinfect bus terminals, railway stations and market areas. A total of 70 Metrowater tankers, filled with disinfectants, spray these places to keep them clean, she added.

Metrowater has asked its staff to disinfect its area offices regularly