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Snakes have no weekend!

THERE is absolutely no questioning the need for a day off for everyone once a week. There are, however, some jobs which have to go on through the week without any let up, like those involved in public service. And for such jobs, it is essential that the staff is given off on a rotation basis to ensure that there is no break and any emergency situation can be dealt with.

Nothing can illustrate this better than what happened in Ras Al Khaimah the other day. The operations cell of the RAK Civil Defence received a complaint from a school on Thursday that a huge snake, likely to be a venomous one, had been spotted in the premises. The slithery creature that it is, the snake disappeared after a while. The Civil Defence officials were magnanimous to the snake and decided to wait till Saturday to get their act together. The fact was that they could not get hold of a pest control official from either the Municipality or other departments concerned during the weekend, and had to wait till Saturday when the offices opened. Whether the snake was caught subsequently or it escaped is another matter.

The point we would like to highlight through these columns is that the Municipality or the Agriculture Department should have an emergency cell which should operate 24X7 to tackle such situations. After all, snakes do not take off on week-ends! And the same can be the case with other such emergency situations.

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