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Providing relief to kin of dead conservancy staff moving at snail’s pace
The social justice department which functions under the ministry of social justice, state of Maharashtra, had issued a directive to municipal corporations, councils and local self-bodies to sanction ₹10 lakh immediately to the next of kin of conservancy staff who had met accidental death while on duty
PUNE Although the state’s social justice department had in 2019 asked all municipal corporations and local self-governing bodies to identify families of conservancy workers or manual scavengers who have died since 1993 and release stipulated compensation of Rs10 lakh from their funds urgently, not many have complied.
The social justice department which functions under the ministry of social justice, state of Maharashtra, had issued a directive to municipal corporations, councils and local self-bodies to sanction ₹10 lakh immediately to the next of kin of conservancy staff who had met accidental death while on duty. The union government under the ministry of social justice and empowerment had conducted a meeting of states and asked them to prepare a detailed list of conservancy staff workers who had died on duty during the past 26 years and issue immediate compensation to their families.
The ministry had mooted that the compensation was to be provided expeditiously under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 which aimed to eliminate insanitary latrines alongside tracking the rehabilitation of manual scavengers in other occupations and conducting periodic surveys. The Act has provisions for stringent penalties, for direct or indirect employment of any person in hazardous cleaning of sewers or septic tanks by any person, local authority or agency. According to the Act, the first instance of its contravention is punishable with imprisonment up to two years or fine up to ₹2 lakh or both. If a worker dies while performing such work, even with safety gear and other precautions, the employer is mandated to pay compensation of ₹10 lakh to the family.
Following the directives, the state social justice department has set up a special cell to look into the compensation related cases involving the conservancy staff and a budgetary provision of ₹1.27 crore has been made towards starting a corpus fund for the project.
Labour union leader Nitin Pawar criticised the civic bodies for their apathetic approach towards the issue of conservancy staff. “The fund allocations in municipal corporations are being done as per the political will for capital intensive projects for the market where social justice finds no place in the policy framed by the governments, municipal and local self-government bodies. Why ultramodern technology is not being used to clean sewers or septic tanks. The conservancy staff are the health ambassadors of our society and they need to be adequately protected and compensated for their work towards keeping our cities clean. Unfortunately, the response from civic authorities is lackadaisical which raises serious concern before the society,” he claimed.
