Hyderabad, a smart city that still uses manual scavengers to clean manholes

It's been only nine months since Hyderabad reported the death of one person and the critical state of another, made to step down into drain pipes and clean them manually at a pharma company in Uppal. Yet, one of the smart cities of Telangana state cannot do away from putting in danger the lives of the poor for its clean-up act.

On Tuesday, August 3, the city reported the death of two Dalit men, Shiva and Ananthaiah who were forced to enter a manhole in Padmavathi Colony by a city contractor to clean it, after the prescribed work limit of 6 pm. While the body of Shiva is recovered, the police are trying to recover Ananthaiah's body from the sewage pipeline.

According to local reports, the two daily wage labourers, belonging to the scheduled caste, were engaged by a local contractor for desilting works.

"The contractor worked against the rules. Any work related to cleaning should not be carried out after 6 pm, that too without notifying the authorities," told A Maruthi Diwakar, GHMC Deputy Commissioner LB Nagar zone to The News Minute.

The two workers were summoned to the location close to midnight on Tuesday. "Usually the work is in daytime, but he went in the night, for the greed of mere ₹100 more. Instead of ₹600, he was promised ₹700," said Gowri, wife of one of the workers, as reported by The Hindu.

The contractor who employed the two labourers for manual scavenging has been booked by the police against the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers, and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.

Earlier in November, 35-year-old Malothu Bheema reportedly died of suffocation after entering a drain in Telangana Pharma, a pharmaceutical company located at Uppal. Another person, Bhukya was rescued in a critical state from the drain pipe.

Bezwada Wilson, National Convenor, Safai Karmachari Andolan took to his microblogging account to express his views.

"Two people die again in sewerage line in Hyderabad! If this is not death due to manual scavenging then what it is? Is the Ministry of Social Justice going to give it a name or still deny? People in power need to answer."

Manual scavenging

An earlier post by Wilson revealed that between 2016 to 2020, almost 472 deaths have happened in the country due to manual scavenging.

The Government, in 1993, passed the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, which barred the use of manual scavengers to manually clean dry latrines as well the construction of such toilets without a flush system that needs to be cleaned up manually.

The Act was followed up in 2013 by the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers, and their Rehabilitation Act, which made it a punishable offence and recognized the urgency of trying to rehabilitate manual scavengers.

The law now categorises the cleaning of sewer and septic-tank as "hazardous cleaning". Sending workers into sewers or septic tanks without "protective gear" and adequate "safety precautions" is prohibited and a prosecutable offence.