Thousands of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) health department employees continue to be missing from civic duty, though the Mumbai Suburban District Collector has exempted them from election duty. The additional municipal commissioner (health) had written to the collector with a request for exemption for BMC staff about two weeks back. But while the BMC health department is still waiting for a response from the collector's office, he claimed that he had exempted BMC staff last week.

Civic duties suffer

Hundreds of people are falling ill in the city due to the rising temperature. Civic-run hospitals have reported around 30 per cent rise in the patients coming to them in the past one month. However, BMC officials responsible for handling such cases, and helping with pre-monsoon preparation to control dengue, malaria etc, are missing. With just few days left for the 17th Lok Sabha election, they have been stationed on election duty. After receiving several complaints from BMC employees, Idzes Kundan, additional municipal commissioner, had written to Mumbai Suburban District Collector Sachin Kurve, seeking exemption of employees from election duty.