9 deaths in four weeks: Need to review safety procedures

deaths in a span of four weeks inside the sewers of Delhi has set the alarm bells ringing in the city. The latest incidents of sewer deaths were reported from east Delhi’s Vishwas Nagar on Saturday in which two lives were lost.

According to Delhi water minister Rajendra Gautam, since Saturday’s incident took place in a private mall, it was not under the jurisdiction of the Delhi Jal Board. “What I got to know is that the incident took place in a mall, where they had engaged a private contractor to clean the septic tank. Since it is a private space, it is not in our jurisdiction. However, I have asked officials to set up a monitoring committee and a vigilance committee, which will also include the police commissioner, soon,” Gautam told Hindustan Times.

Saturday’s incident comes six days after three men had died while cleaning a sewer line in Lajpat Nagar.

The case is yet to be solved as Delhi Jal Board, which was asked to submit a report in the case by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, says only the arrest of the contractor who hired the men for cleaning the sewer and is on the run may help crack it.

Doctors say sewage pits and septic tanks produce toxic gases like carbon monoxide and methane that makes breathing difficult. When a person is exposed to these gases, shortage of oxygen is created, a state of acute hypoxaemia and as a result, the victims lose alertness.

According to experts, the spurt in number of such accidents — which has caused nine deaths in a month — might be because more and more untrained people, without proper precautions, are taking up the cudgels of cleaning the city’s sewers.

Manual scavenging was banned in the country in 1993.

However, since 1994, more than 80 people have died in the drains and manholes of the Capital alone.