Sewer line swallows 2; GHMC refuses to learn
Workers made to work at night, without safety equipment
In a tragic incident, two workers died in a manhole of a stormwater drain, which they had entered to do manual scavenging, at Sahebnagar in LB Nagar late on Tuesday night. Their bodies were recovered only after an extensive operation that lasted several hours on Wednesday.
The deceased were identified as Butla Shiva, 24, hailing from Dindi village, and Navalli Ananthaiah, 45, from Mustipally, both in Nalgonda district. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) said the duo died of asphyxiation. The rescue operations went on for over 18 hours.
Shiva and Ananthaiah were hired by contractor B. Yellaiah, who was tasked by the GHMC to clear the stormwater drain. Indicating gross negligence, the GHMC did not tell him that it was connected to sewer lines carrying drainage from nearby colonies in LB Nagar.
Manual scavenging is banned and so is working in the drains at night. Both these rules were violated, with fatal consequences.
Neither of the workers was given protective gear. The incident occurred just weeks after minister K.T. Rama Rao and sewerage board managing director M. Dana Kishore had assured that manual scavenging would be ended in the city.
The police said contractor Yellaiah engaged Shiva and Ananthaiah to desilt the public sewerage system at Sahebnagar under Vanasthalipuram police station limits at 10.30 pm.
According to the police, Shiva entered the manhole and lost consciousness after some time. He fell into the drainage water. Yellaiah called Ananthaiah who was working at another manhole. Ananthaiah rushed to the spot and tried to help Shiva but he also lost consciousness and fell into the drainage.
The police and fire services were called in to retrieve the bodies. Fire officer B. Sreenaiah said around 10 fire fighters along with DRF teams worked to recover Ananthaiah's body. The drainage pipes were narrow, and diggers were brought in to dig up the drain and retrieve the bodies.
Contractor Yellaiah declared `5 lakh compensation to the workers. Neither the GHMC nor Mayor Gadwal R Vijayalakshmi announced ex gratia.
Vanasthalipuram ACP K. Purushotham Reddy said, “We have registered a case under the Manual Scavenging Act against the contractor.”
Sources said the authorities had hired contractor Yellaiah only to remove silt from the stormwater drain but did not inform him about sewer water entering the drain.
Asked about the incident, a GHMC official told this newspaper, "These two workers are not GHMC staff and they were engaged by B. Yellaiah contractor. He was given the job to remove the silt from manholes and pipelines at Sahebnagar, Waddera Basthi, Hariharapuram, Balajinagar, SKD and other colonies at the cost of `12.70 lakh.”
“The contractor without the knowledge of the GHMC opened the cover of a 10-feet deep manhole at Padmavathi Colony, BN Reddy Nagar, to clean the sewer lines without providing safety gear to the workers. As soon as they opened the manhole cover, they fell into the sewer line.”
Officials said the sewer trunk passed through Gandhinagar, Akilandeswari Nagar, Snehamayi Nagar and Padmavathinagar, all located downstream of the Kaprai Cheruvu, which has been overflowing due to continuous rainfall.
After a joint inspection by local corporator M. Lachi Reddy, deputy commissioner A. Maruthu Diwakar and executive engineer K. Rajaiah, it was decided that bucket cleaning was essential and work got started.