Sewage workers continue to die in manholes despite legal provisions against manual scavenging, but ironically, officialdom hides behind the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 when it comes to safety precautions.
GHMC includes no clause about safety gear for workers in its agreements with contractors when it comes to cleaning or de-silting of sewerage or stormwater drains. The agreements merely contain one perfunctory clause about the contractor’s responsibility towards workers’ safety, and medical insurance for them. Safety gear such as full body suit, gloves, boots and helmet do not find place in the agreement, let alone oxygen cylinders.
When questions are raised about the same in the instance of death of workers, contractors and GHMC officials end up blaming each other. Contractors’ refrain is that the civic body does not include cost of safety gear to workers in the tender document, while officials say it is the contractor’s obligation.
“The contractor is prohibited by law from using manual labour to get into the sewage lines. Hence, there is no question of providing funds for safety gear,” says an official under the condition of anonymity. Regardless of the prohibition against manual scavenging, however, use of manual labour for cleaning of sewage/stormwater pipelines continues unabated. Officials are also quick to point out that the prohibition against manual scavenging is applicable only to the sewerage lines, and not the stormwater drains.
However, sewerage and stormwater drains alternating between each other is a phenomenon peculiar for Hyderabad, which provides an escape route for all concerned except the worker. Stormwater drains contain ‘dry flows’ even when there are no rains, as several sewage lines from household as well as commercial establishments are directly connected to them.
The drain in which two workers met their untimely death recently in Vanasthalipuram is just a case in point. Initially built as sewerage line, the drain is doubling up as stormwater line too, and no safety gear was provided to the workers compelled to descend into it. GHMC officials, nevertheless, continue to stick to their claim that it was a stormwater drain, in order to escape from legal implications of engaging manual labour in work related to manual scavenging.