2 days ago
‘Inhumane' Cuttack municipal body forces workers to clean drain without safety gear
CUTTACK: The Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) has continued engaging sanitary workers in manual scavenging of drains without providing them any protective gear, in blatant violation of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act-2013.
One such incident came to light on Thursday when a man, holding a motor tube, was seen swimming bare body in the main storm water channel (MSWC-I) stretching from Matru Bhawan to Nuabazar, cleaning the weeds with the help of a bamboo stick. Not only that, some minor boys were also allegedly engaged at the site to remove the weeds from the banks of the drain in violation of the Child Labour(Prohibition and Regulation) Act.
'Venturing into drains bare body for manual cleaning work is not just risky but also life-threatening as the channels contain dirty, polluted water. They are laden with sharp items like broken glasses, metals and spikes besides poisonous snakes in the waterbodies. Also, there was no one present at the spot to supervise the work,' alleged city-based activist Jitendra Kumar Sahoo.
Even though manual scavenging has already claimed many lives in the past, the civic body has seemingly not yet learnt its lesson and openly violating the law. In April 15, 2021, two workers had died of asphyxiation and another had become critical while cleaning a sewerage system of 15-ft depth at CDA-sector-10.
