Forty-year-old pourakarmika, Renuka Guddappa, has not stepped on to a bicycle or a two-wheeler so far. She is now learning to ride the new e-autorikshaw of Mangaluru City Corporation, which has planned to allow women pourakarmikas use this vehicle for door-to-door waste collection.
“I am learning since last one month. Yet to get used to techniques of operating this new vehicle,” said Ms. Guddappa, a mother of two children. “As I have not stepped on bicycle or any other two-wheeler in my life, there is still nervousness in operating this vehicle independently,” she said. Ms. Guddappa is taking a break from the work of removing roadside grass and attending training session.
Similar is the tale of grass cutters Rekha Isarnal and Asha Walikar, who have been attending training sessions that are regularly being conducted at Karavali Utsav ground and in Kavoor and Surathkal under supervision of MCC health inspectors B.K. Arun Kumar, Kiran Giridhar, Sanjay and Ashwini.
