DJB workers write to CM on sewer deaths

The Delhi Jal Board Karamchari Union has written to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal asking him to prevent the deaths in the city’s sewers by not allowing untrained workers under contractors to enter these.

Manual scavenging was banned in the country in 1993. However, since 1994, over 80 people have died in drains and manholes of Delhi. Section 7 of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, states that no person, local authority or any agency shall engage or employ, either directly or indirectly, any person for hazardous cleaning of a sewer or a septic tank. Still in three separate incidents, nine people have died in Delhi in the span of four weeks.

According to Taraspal Tomar, president of the union, said the practice of using untrained labourers needs to stop.

“The contractors employ untrained workers who step inside such dangerous places without any knowledge or equipment for merely ₹100 per day wage! This is fatal. We have asked the CM to put a stop to this to end possibility of any more sewer deaths,” Tomar said.

The move comes even as the government is set to form a monitoring committee which will implement provisions of the Manual Scavenging Act.

Delhi water minister Rajender Gautam said the draft has been prepared and he will submit it to the chief minister. “Once the CM, gives his approval, it will be formed. This panel will include the MCD commissioners, police commissioner, representatives of the workers’ unions, a representative of Delhi Cantonment Board, of the NDMC, four social workers, including two women, and one DJB member,” Gautam said.