Puducherry improper burial: Employees demand 3 workers suspension be revoked as they were untrained and low-level staff

PUDUCHERRY: The employees of Villianur Commune Panchayat and Health department on Tuesday protested against the suspension of the three employees who were involved in the improper burial of the dead body of a COVID-19 positive person from Chennai in Puducherry and demanded the withdrawal of the suspension order. 

P Lakshmanaysamy, Honorary President of Puducherry state government employees Central Federation said that the employees who were assigned to undertake the task of burial were without experience on conducting burial and no instructions were given on how to go about it. While two are sanitary workers of the Commune Panchayat, one is a ward attender in Government General Hospital and another a social worker.  There was no “ Vettaiyan”  who conducts the burial in the burial ground as the post is lying vacant, said Lakshmanasamy.  Neither there was any briefing to them by the officials of Commune Panchayat or Revenue on how to bury the body as per the SOP released by the Home ministry. Moreover, the burial was not a normal one. In this circumstance, there had been a mistake during burial for which the entire blame was put on these workers and suspended them. It is unfair, he said and demanded the suspension order be revoked .

Taking strong exception to the suspension of three low-level employees of the administration for the “mistakes” committed while burying the body of a man who died of COVID 19, AIADMK legislature party leader A Anbazhagan on Tuesday urged chief minister V Narayanasamy to withdraw the suspension forthwith.

 It is the duty of the persons at the cemetery to bury the dead bodies. But out of compulsion from the senior officials, the low-level staff took the body to the cemetery and out of fear, some “mistakes” happened which is not deliberate. The government should have given them some advice, he said adding that it is wrong on the part of the government to suspend them.