New Delhi: Samajik Samarasta Manch Delhi urged the National Commission for Scheduled Castes to ensure amendment in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) so as to provide minimum punishment of seven years to any person who is responsible for sending any Safai worker into a sewer causing the loss of his life or suffering of other consequences. In case of death or other disability of the Safai worker due to his entering a sewer, the employer and the principal employer should be made liable to pay compensation. Chairman of the SC Commission Shri Ramshankar Katheria assured the delegation to look into the matter and make efforts that the matter is discussed in the winter session of the Parliament.
The delegation of Samajik Samarasata Manch presenting memorandum to Shri Ramshankar Katheria in New Delhi
A delegation of 50 persons comprising social activists and the members of Safai Karamchari community, led by Mahant Om Prakash Giri and co-convener of the Manch Shri Vinod Diwakar called on Shri Katheria on September 17 to address the concerns of the Safai Karamcharis employed for cleaning Sewage Plants. The Manch has been agitating and raising the issues concerning the welfare and rehabilitation of the Safai Karamcharies. It deeply disenchanted with the recent death of five people who had fallen ill after they entered sewage plant at DLF Green Apartment. They were brought dead at a city hospital. The death was caused due to asphyxiation at a sewerage treatment plant in West Delhi’s Moti Nagar area. Over the last seven years 36 workers in Delhi have died cleaning sewer lines, rainwater harvesting pits or sewerage treatment plants. Each death has a familiar trajectory – a worker without safety gear, authorities looking to shift blame and little tangible change. In 2017, four people died in Ghitorni while working in a water harvesting pit in July, three died in Lajpat Nagar while cleaning a sewer in August; and one died while cleaning a sewer at LNJP Hospital in the same month. This is in spite of The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Rehabilitation Act, 2013 which prohibits employment of manual scavengers or manual cleaning of sewers and septic tanks without protective equipments. On the ground, however, little has changed.
