AHMEDABAD: After the incident of a sanitation worker being made to enter a manhole without protective gear in Chandkheda, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) on Saturday fined the contractor concerned Rs 25,000 and issued a show-cause notice to the firm. The incident took place on Wednesday. TOI reported the incident on Saturday.
A contract labourer was made to climb down a manhole late on Wednesday night on the road opposite Tulsi Residency in Chandkheda. A video was recorded by a member of Manav Garima Trust, an organisation working for the rights of sanitation workers in the state showed a few workers standing near the manhole while one worker was made to enter. The video showed that the worker, clad in shorts and a vest, had no safety equipment other than a harness attached to a rope. The AMC had claimed that the manhole was over a storm water drain and was not a sewer.
The video shows that the worker going completely into the manhole holding a sand bag.
He is later seen emerging from it. “We investigated the incident and found that there was a leak in the drain and the worker was lowered into a three-foot manhole and as the pit was shallow he was not wearing a respirator. Later, when he was lowered deeper into sewege, he was given an oxygen mask,” said a senior AMC official.
An AMC official said the contractor has been fined Rs 25,000 and has been issued a show-cause notice. “We welcome the civic body’s action against the contractor. We also request civic bodies to provide safety gear to workers,” said Parsottam Vaghela, director of Manav Garima Trust. Section 5 of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act 2013 prohibits states and Union Territories from employing workers for manual scavenging, or entry into sewers.
