Workers de-silting drains without safety gear: Mumbai citizens

Citizens have come up with at least three incidents of workers not donning appropriate safety equipment

Mumbai: Ahead of the monsoon, the BMC has begun to remove silt from storm water drains across the city, for the smooth draining of rainwater. And citizens have come up with at least three incidents of workers not donning appropriate safety equipment.

A worker inside a drain in Tilak Nagar, Chembur, wearing only an orange safety vest

On Wednesday and the days before, Mohammed Kamar Shah witnessed two workers on road number two in Mankhurd, Mandala sitting on the edge of a manhole that lay amidst garbage, with dirty sewer water all around. With their feet in the drain and wearing only the orange safety vest, they worked to remove the garbage and silt. “One of the cleaners cut his hand and was bleeding,” said Shah, “I asked them why they weren’t wearing any protective gear. He must have cut his hand on something inside the drain.”

When Shah continued to probe, the workers said they were given the materials, but it was too hot to wear them. The supervisor on site, who was wearing a BMC logo, said the workers were given safety gear, but they didn’t wear them. “What could the workers possibly say with their supervisor right in front of them?” asked Shah. “The private contractor said wearing protective gear slows the work down. The work is still going on in the same manner.”

A day prior, on Sunday, a Tilak Nagar, Chembur resident saw three workers without any safety gear. “It was 11am when I saw them inside the drain with one person outside helping them,” said Laxman Singh. “This is a yearly practice. It’s unfortunate it continues.”

On April 17, another resident of the same area, Kabir, saw the same sequence of events. One of his photos shows a mother with two toddlers helping a young man with only his head and upper torso, shirtless, sticking out of the manhole on the footpath, with a bowl of scoped out silt beside him. A growing pool of silt lay nearby, with two other workers removing silt from the next gutter. When he tried to talk to the BMC supervisor on site about it, he received no proper response.

Vishvas Mote, the assistant commissioner of the M West ward, said: “Desilting is done using machine most commonly, with the exception of slums or when the drains are too small. Some places in Tilak Nagar have this problem, but even then, the workers are supposed to be given proper safety gear, like hand gloves, vest and helmet. Even then, the work is supposed to be carried out with equipment, not by stepping into the drain and by hand. Both BMC officials and private contractors have been given such instructions.”

He said the incidents will be looked into.