Death of sanitation workers triggers demand for machines

86 persons died while working in manholes in last five years

The tragic deaths of seven persons including four sanitation workers after inhaling toxic fumes while cleaning a septic tank in a hotel in Vadodara district on June 15 have triggered demand for machines instead of manual cleaning of sewer lines and septic tanks.

An anguished Anand Mahindra of the Mahindra Group offered financial help to procure them. “Enough. Enough of this debasement of human life. I had tweeted about an automated scavenging machine — the Bandicoot — developed by young students and many others have also been designed. What’s preventing their widespread adoption? If funding’s needed to produce in scale, count me in,” he said on Twitter.

Responding to him, Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan said he had gifted 25 machines to the sanitation workers and a truck to the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC).

“A salute to you for that quiet and empathetic action. I will emulate your gesture for the municipality in the region where this most recent horror took place,” Mr. Mahindra responded to Mr. Bachchan’s tweet.

Though the Gujarat government has offered a compensation of ₹4 lakh each to the families of the deceased and the police filed a case of causing death due to negligence and culpable homicide not amounting to murder against hotel owner Hasan Abbas, who is on the run, the administration remains silent on why the sewer lines are cleaned manually in the State.

Routine affair

In Gujarat, 86 workers died of suffocation while working in manholes over the last five years, as per the details shared by the State government in the Assembly in February.

According to the details shared by the Chief Minister, 53 of them died in Ahmedabad alone, followed by 18 in Surat. Five cases were reported in Vadodara, three in Anand, two each in Jamnagar, Patan and Gandhinagar and one in Kutch.