Two Dalit men, who were employed as sanitary workers by the Minjur Town Panchayat in Thiruvallur district, died after a private contractor engaged them in manual scavenging on Monday, May 1. While Govindan (45) was a permanent employee, Subharayalu (58) was a temporary sweeper with the town panchayat department. The panchayat officials have claimed that both the men had turned to the private contractor for work to earn an additional income.
According to the police, Govindan and Subharayalu suffocated to death after entering the septic tank of Immanuel Higher Secondary School in Minjur on Monday afternoon. They confirmed that the school didn’t provide any safety gear before letting them enter the septic tank. While a case has been registered against the school’s correspondent Simon C Victor for engaging the men in manual scavenging, the police are yet to nab the private contractor who hired them.
Minjur Panchayat’s Executive Officer Vetriarasan told TNM that he did not know how the private contractor and the panchayat’s workers came in touch. “Every week while marking their attendance, we tell them to not indulge in manual scavenging. We keep informing them about the dangers associated with it. However, since May 1 was a holiday for them, they seem to have gone with a contractor to clean the septic tank for extra cash,” he said.
Sanitary workers employed permanently by the town panchayat in Tamil Nadu earn a base salary of Rs 15,700 per month, and some additional benefits such as dearness and house rent allowances. Temporary workers who work on a contractual basis in Thiruvallur district earn Rs 8,000 per month.
The fact that these men take up extra work for money is secondary, and the root cause of such deaths is that there are people who still engage men in manual scavenging, said Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF) general secretary K Samuel Raj. “Panchayat officers are trying to safeguard themselves by claiming they are educating their workers, but their responsibility can’t end there. The government should take responsibility for not eradicating manual scavenging yet,” he said. Additionally, he also suggested that the state government should ensure that machines such as the septic tank-cleaning robot named HomoSep, which was tested by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, should be made available in all the districts to prevent such deaths.
An initial case was filed against Simon under provisions of Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavenger and their Rehabilitation Act and sections 304 (death due to negligence), 325 (voluntary act of hurting) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). However, after ascertaining that Govindan and Subharayalu belonged to the Scheduled Caste, the police have also booked the correspondent under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The police suspect that one of the two men must have entered the septic tank first and fallen unconscious after inhaling the poisonous gas. “The second man entered the tank to rescue the other, but also faced a similar fate,” Minjur Inspector Chiranjeevi said. The school authorities alerted the police soon after the incident, and the workers’ bodies were recovered by the Fire and Rescue services personnel. They were sent to the Stanley Medical College Hospital for post-mortem.