PANCHKULA: The risk of being bitten by India’s most venomous land snake, the Common krait, or by the Russell’s viper, which leads to maximum deaths, did not deter a doughty and youthful team constituted as the Rapid Task Force (RTF) by the Panchkula municipal corporation (MC). By intervening and rescuing snakes from homes and gardens, the RTF saved both humans and reptiles from a bloody conflict.
As the invisible terror of a deadly virus struck deep root and families baulked at performing the last rites of their beloved ones, the snake rescuers have been called upon to perform another hazardous task: to collect bio-medical and other solid/kitchen wastes from Covid quarantine centres and isolation homes.
Covid waste being removed from an isolation homeGovernment employees mandated to perform waste collection tasks were not up to the challenge, so the onerous duty fell upon the snake-rescue team. The dual tasking of rescuing snakes, monkeys, sambars, monitor lizards on the one hand and removing hazardous Covid waste on the other stretched the RTF to the extreme limits but they rose to the occasion and established themselves as unsung, frontline warriors against the new coronavirus, which had evoked as much dread as a black cobra roving in a living space at night.
“When the venom of snakes does not scare us, how will coronavirus scare us? None of us has contracted the virus though we are performing the waste collection duties, even foregoing the celebration of our traditional festivals. We have to travel to peripheral areas such as Raipur Rani, Kalka and Barwala to collect Covid waste and negotiate rocky terrains with our vehicles. The employees who should have been doing this task got afraid of collecting Covid waste so were asked to take over the responsibility in an emergency situation. We are doing the task without hesitation. We have had a long experience working with wildlife and this has helped us tackle hazardous waste collection also,” RTF member Alfaaz, told TOI.
Alfaaz’s RTF colleagues include Mohammad Ali, Shah Rukh, Anil, Syed Ali and Shamshaad. Though collection of biomedical wastes does not fall under the mandate of the MC, the unprecedented crisis evolving from the pandemic resulted in innovative cross-department tasking. “The RTF was set up in 2018 to rescue wildlife and was a brainchild of then MC commissioner Rajesh Jogpal and it has served the society and nation well in the crisis also. No other local body in Haryana has such an RTF for wildlife rescue. We have allocated three vehicles for Covid waste collection. The RTF and some more employees make up a 12-member team for the waste collection. The RTF is provided with proper protection kits and follow protocols while collecting waste from quarantine centres and isolation homes. The waste is handed over to Ess Kay Hygienic Service, with which we have a contract for disposal. The hospitals directly dispose offtheir wastes through contracts with the same company,” Jarnail Singh, executive officer, MC, told TOI.
The RTF juggles the time available between answering rescue calls for wildlife with the task of Covid waste collection. They rescue snakes from old buildings, posh colonies with marble flooring, peripheral villages. During one such operation, the RTF rescued 11 snakes (four Rat snakes, three Russell’s vipers, two Common kraits and two Spectacled cobras from one plot under construction at Raipur Rani. The snakes just kept pouring out of crevices and holes from that plot!
“As the monsoon season is under way, we are receiving many snake calls. On an average, we rescue about 250 snakes per year. We also catch monkeys or scare them away from residential areas. We have been provided with snake-rescue equipment but we do get bit sometimes. I have myself been bitten twice while rescuing snakes but both times it was a non-venomous Rat snake,” Mohammad Ali told TOI.