After announcing the appointment of 5,000 swachhata doots to implement cleanliness initiatives and lead awareness drives, the BMC has ended up hiring only 532 of them. A majority of them have been deployed at wards, where the garbage issue has escalated. 

In December last year, the BMC announced that they would be appointing 5,000 sanitation workers (swachhata doots) instead of clean-up marshals, infamous for slapping fines for spitting and littering during the lockdown. These swachhata doots would not have the power to take punitive action, but would supervise day-to-day cleanliness and garbage collection in their assigned areas.