In a tragic incident, two young workers who were cleaning an underground drainage system died of asphyxiation on Wednesday.
As news spread, their relatives and other workers from the city corporation assembled at HMS Colony and protested against the administration for its “nonchalant attitude” towards conservancy workers.
Tension prevailed for some time as the workers refused to remove the bodies from the UGD, and finally fire and rescue services personnel were deployed to remove them.
A large posse of police arrived at the spot and held talks with the agitators. The workers demanded adequate compensation to the two families and the arrest of the contractor, who had taken the work for the city corporation.
The incident occurred at 12.15 p.m., and top officials of the corporation, led by Commissioner Kathiravan and City Engineer Mathuram, reached to the spot only around 4 p.m. The officials held talks with the agitators for about 45 minutes, and it was agreed to give a compensation of Rs. 10 lakh each to the two families.
The Commissioner told reporters that the corporation would file a complaint with the police. The compensation to the families would be subsequently recovered from the contractor as he had allegedly failed to ensure that the workers were provided with safety gadgets as per the Supreme Court directive.
Identified
The police identified the two workers as Visu alias Viswanathan of Arani Pudupet in Tiruvannamalai district and Muniandi of Manjalmedu at Arapalayam in the city. They were engaged by contractor Kumaravel and sub-contractor Das.
A few city-based NGOs said that despite clear guidelines from the apex court that workers should be educated on the consequences of manual scavenging, the contractor’s irresponsible attitude showed negligence and scant regard for the laws. The officials should also be taken to task for the deaths.
A sanitary inspector, who inspected the underground drainage, said that the contractor was assigned with the task of pumping sewage from the locality to another facility in the adjacent area. The septic tank, measuring 4 x 4 size was 20 feet deep and the workers were not wearing masks. When Visu slipped into the tank, Muniandi jumped into the sewer to save him, but both were asphyxiated.
The bodies were sent to Government Rajaji Hospital here for post-mortem.
