Panel upset over delay in solatium to families of deceased workers

The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis on Monday pulled up the district administration for not providing relief to the families of three sanitary workers who died while cleaning a septic tank.

At a review meeting held at the Coimbatore Collectorate with representatives of the administration and Coimbatore Corporation, Commission member Jagadish Hiremani said that in his last review meeting with the administration and Corporation officials, he had directed them to provide solatium, education assistance and houses to the families of R. Gowrishankar, R. Ezhumalai and P. Suriyakumar who had died while cleaning a septic tank at a jewellery manufacturing unit in R.S. Puram on December 22.

Earlier, he visited the manufacturing unit on Father Rhondy Street, R.S. Puram, and a few other places.

His directions were that the district administration should provide ₹ 3 lakh each to the families, school education for the kin of the deceased in the ensuing academic year and houses to each of the three families at the earliest.

But to date, neither the administration nor the Corporation had implemented the Commission’s directive.

Was the administration so weak that it was unable to implement three directions, that too to only three of hundreds of Safai Karamcharis (sanitary workers) in Coimbatore, he questioned.

The Commission had asked the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Law and Order, Coimbatore City, to investigate into around 25 complaints from the sanitary workers from Dalit communities, who had alleged that though they were qualified and eligible enough, the Corporation and other local bodies had given them only conservancy work while for persons of lesser qualification from other communities, it had assigned office work.

Regarding the Central Government-sponsored survey in Coimbatore on identifying sanitary workers, Mr. Hiremani said he had directed the administration to complete the survey within the next two weeks after conducting awareness camps.

While the district administration had claimed that there were only 252 sanitary workers and another 300-odd to be added, his inputs were that there were around 5,000 persons engaged in sanitary works in both government and private establishments.

He also wanted the district administration to take to the sanitary workers the schemes offered by the National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation.