BMC has rules for sewerage cleaning, but no control over pvt dealings

The incident of three manual scavengers dying while cleaning the septic tanks in a posh Thane society has once again raised the issue of safety of conservancy workers in metropolitan cities. Former conservancy workers and activists claim that despite orders from the Supreme Court, manual cleaning of sewerage pipelines is still prevalent in Mumbai.

Ramesh Haralkar, a former civic sweeper and the founder of Safai Kamgar Parivartan Sangh — an organisation to bring change in the life of manual scavengers — said that despite orders from the Supreme Court, no significant change in cleaning of either sewerage pipelines or septic tanks has been enforced in the city. "There are areas in Mumbai, where machines cannot reach and hence, manual scavengers are appointed," Haralkar said.

Sunil Yadav, a conservancy worker with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and an MPhil awardee from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), said the civic body is now outsourcing the work to shirk responsibility. "In recent times, the BMC does not ask its employees to clean manually. However, it appoints contractors who further hire third parties and then, flout norms," Yadav said. He added that people from remote parts of the state are hired to claen septic tanks manually.

Conservancy workers also said that mostly drug addicts and poor people are hired for such jobs. "These contractors hire drug addicts, who are ready to get into the chambers against less amount of money," said Haralkar.

In case of an accident, the contractor provides some monetary support to the family and the families do not complain.

However, civic officials claim that the BMC uses suction machines to clean septic tanks and sewerage lines. However, the authority is no control over private dealings. The onus lies on the owner to get private sewerage chambers cleaned.

A senior official from the Sewerage Operations (SO) Department of the BMC said the owners of private property have to hire people to clean septic tanks. "The sewerage pipeline that connects a society to the main sewerage line is around 6-inches-long," the official said. He added that a machine cannot enter to clean it. "A rope with a knot made to pass through the pipeline to clean it," the official added.

Most of the places in Mumbai have been connected to the main sewerage line. Places, which do not have a pipeline, are claened using suction or mud machines. "There are slum areas, where sewerage lines have not been constructed and public toilets are used, we use suction machines in such cases," the official said. Mumbai has around 1,860 kilometre sewer pipelines and 51 sewage pumping stations. Mumbai is supplied with around 3,750 million litre of potable water every day. Around 80 per cent of the water supplied gets converted into effluents.

Price Of Life

• Conservancy workers also say that mostly drug addicts and poor people are hired for such jobs
• In case of a mishap, the contractor provides some money & families don’t complain