Sewerage cleaners win safety battle

Rajeshree Sisodia, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: July 31. 2008 11:17PM UAE / July 31. 2008 7:17PM GMT

NEW DELHI // Sewerage workers in the capital have won a yearlong legal battle to force their employers to implement improvements in safety equipment, training and health care.

Delhi high court judges on Wednesday ruled thousands of the capital’s sewerage workers, who manually clean sewers with little or no protective equipment and training, must be provided with safety equipment, training and free medical treatment after employers admitted more than 30 sewerage workers have died since 2002.

The order also means the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) and the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), which employ the majority of Delhi’s sewerage cleaners, must give the family of each sewerage worker who dies while working or who dies as a result of illnesses brought on by poor working conditions 100,000 rupees (Dh8,638).

In a south Delhi slum, the verdict has come too late for one family. Speaking before the ruling, Shakuntala Ram, 46, recalled how her son Rajinder, 25, died while cleaning a sewer.

Rajinder was on his first day of work as a DJB contract worker in the capital on May 5 when he climbed into a sewer, 6 metres deep, without any training or safety equipment. He was overcome by the stench, lost consciousness and drowned in effluence.

“Sometimes I think he will come back, but he won’t. He was such a nice boy, always very happy. I’m not angry. It’s just hard. I feel hurt,” she said.

Her husband, Kanchhi Ram, 48, a cleaner, said: “We still think he’s alive because it happened so suddenly, he wasn’t ill. We should get some justice. No other person should have to go through this. We want them to be given safety equipment so this doesn’t happen again.”

The family said it had not received any compensation after Rajinder, who was to marry his fiancée, Meenakshi, 20, later this year, died.

The verdict, the result of the first sewerage workers’ legal campaign in the capital, comes after the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), a New Delhi-based legal collective, filed a case on behalf of the National Campaign for Dignity and Rights of Sewerage and Allied Workers in July 2007. The group is a coalition of non-governmental organisations campaigning for sewerage workers’ rights.

The petition alleged employers were acting illegally by not giving sewerage workers the medical care, equipment and training they were entitled to under guidelines and that the families of some of the dead sewerage workers were not being compensated in line with the law.

Jyoti Singh, a lawyer for NDMC, said in court the corporation’s 179 sewerage workers were already entitled to free medical check-ups in hospitals and were guaranteed insurance cover.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the work cleaning sewers is done through pressure jetting and sucking machines, only a small number are doing manual labour. We will do this [abide by the court’s ruling] for that small number,” she said.

Judges also ruled that a committee should be appointed to recommend the kinds of protective clothing sewerage workers will be given and to ensure the court order is implemented.

Jai Singh, a lawyer for HRLN, said the committee’s effectiveness was crucial in a country where laws and guidelines were routinely flouted.

“This is just the beginning regarding health issues for sewerage workers. Subject to the success of the implementation of this, we will replicate this all across the country. With the committee being appointed, there is also some accountability as to the implementation of the court’s directions,” he said.

Figures for the number of sewerage workers in Delhi are not available as no citywide survey has been carried out, but contractors who have refused to disclose worker numbers employ some cleaners on a casual basis.

The National Campaign for Dignity and Rights of Sewerage and Allied Workers estimates more than 7,000 people clean sewers in the capital. Using buckets, hoes and rope, cleaners strip down to their underclothes and lower themselves into sewers without face-masks, goggles or protective clothing to clean a dilapidated sewer system struggling to cope with the 2,871 million litres of sewage the city’s 14 million people produce each day.

DJB employs most of the sewerage workers with 5,600 staff and another 1,400 as daily wage labourers. Private contractors that win DJB tenders also hire some workers to carry out emergency work.

Many sewerage workers complain of suffering from eye, stomach and breathing problems brought on, they claim, by exposure to effluence and toxic gases, including methane and hydrogen sulphide.

A report in 2005 by the Centre for Education and Communication, a New Delhi-based workers’ rights group, said 33 workers died while unblocking sewer lines between 2003 and 2005. Around half of the 200 cleaners the survey focused on suffered from respiratory problems.

DJB documents obtained by The National show that 36 of DJB’s sewerage workers have died since 2002. Lawyers at the HRLN said the number could be as high as 41.

NDMC court records show none of the corporation’s staff sewerage workers have died in the last six years.

The court ruling also applies to the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the Delhi government, Delhi Cantonment Board and Delhi Development Authority, all bodies also involved in the maintenance of the city’s sewerage system. The court order will extend to all sewerage workers, including staff employees, contract workers and daily wage labourers.

DJB refused to comment.



rsisodia@thenational.ae