Coimbatore: The National Commission for Scheduled Caste (NCSC) on Friday urged the city corporation to take necessary steps to replace humans with robots for scavenging works.
Speaking to reporters here, L Murugan, vice-president, NCSC, said the civic body could follow suit the examples set by Thiruvananthapuram and Hyderabad, which have introduced robots for scavenging works. He was in the city to head the review meeting with the city corporation.
NCSC has been conducting review meeting across the state to ensure the welfare of the SC community people, who form a majority of the corporation sanitary workers. Robots would end the menace of manual scavenging, the commission felt.
Acknowledging that most sanitary workers were not in the habit of using safety gears, including shoes and gloves all the times, Murugan said he would recommend the civic body to create awareness among them to use the same whenever they are at work.
“We have also recommended periodical medical tests for the sanitary workers as they often work sans the safety gears,” he added.
Citing that the civic body has issued orders to fix the minimum wage as Rs 350 for the sanitary workers, Murugan said the commission had recommended the same and it has been implemented.
“The civic body has been asked to take legal action against the contractor, who violates the minimum wage act,” he said and added that the commission had been receiving complaints of contractors taking away the ATM cards of the workers a day or two before the salary date.
The wages should be transferred to the workers’ bank account and should not be given in hand, he added.