Relevance: GS Paper III (Disaster Management)
Source:
Why has this issue cropped up?
The recent deaths of six sewerage workers in Delhi in two separate incidents form part of a continuing series of such deaths.
Poverty : the main culprit
The pressure of poverty forces these workers to descend almost bare-bodied into sewers full of filth and excreta, fully knowing that they may asphyxiate to death as have many others like them.
The questions that arise
Why must these workers get down into the filth as they do, when mechanized cleaning is available and has been mandated by law?
Against the law
No person, local authority or agency can hire people for hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks under the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, amended in 2013.
The plight of the sewer workers
- In the hierarchy of importance as viewed by society and the authorities in India, the plight of the sewerage workers who are from the lowest castes is simply not visible.
- They are the faceless ones who sweep the streets, and clean the drains, “house gullies”, septic tanks and sewerage lines for a pittance.
- Ever since the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan started, it has been pointed out that the actual foot soldiers of this mission have got scant attention and even less financial resources.
- The entrenched association between the lowest-ranking castes and the work of cleaning other people’s waste has led to lack of interest and efforts in pushing for mechanical innovation to access uneven gutters and drains.
- In Bengaluru, for instance, apartment blocks can have their own sewage treatment plants, and do the repairs and maintenance too without involving civic authorities. This means that private agencies and contractors are hired to do this work and they in turn get “casual” workers on an ad hoc basis, without any thought to safety, and get the work done.
- Where workers have been given proper safety gear, the complaint is that it is so heavy and unwieldy that they prefer to strip it off and work. Here too, the efforts should have been to constantly experiment and finely hone lighter safety suits.
The laudable efforts
- Jetting machines have been used by Hyderabad..
- Kerala engineers devised “Bandicoot,” the robotic machine.
- The “sewer croc” has been built by scientists and engineers in Hyderabad.
- The Delhi government too has received action plans for mechanised cleaning of drains and sewers, and there has been a proposal to make “entrepreneurs” of safai karamcharis by providing them loans to buy and use sewer-cleaning machines.
Conclusion
India has the technology to launch satellites but not to clean sewer lines and septic tanks that are just 20 feet or less underground. The much vaunted and worthy aim of this government to harness the power of technology and innovation could be directed to prevent the cruel and unnecessary deaths of the sanitation workers.
