Manhole misery: A cry for a cleanup Premium

Fear, anxiety, poverty, and caste-based discrimination trap workers in a job with no safety measures, leading to deaths. Govt. must accept reality, provide safety gear, and ensure justice for victims' families. #EndManualScavenging

On March 22, 2018, a shroud of fear and anxiety enveloped M. Manikyala Rao as he wearily made his way home. He had just returned from a demonstration held in connection with the death of a co-worker who had entered the perilous depths of a manhole in Vambay colony, Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. Rao, a contract employee with the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) had been working as a drain cleaner since 2015, and was aware of the horrors lurking beneath the manholes. But unlettered and trapped by circumstance, he continued to risk his life in a job he had no choice but to cling to. 

Today, over five years later, his wife M. Yashoda, is getting into the habit of picking fully bloomed hibiscus flowers every morning, outside her two-room house in Nunna, near Vijayawada. She will string them together into a garland and place them across Rao’s photo, which hangs on a wall of the main room.  

Rao died on July 15 this year, allegedly due to asphyxiation after entering a manhole in Badavapeta area. He was 44. He did not have on any protective gear.

“He called me just before beginning his work and said he was being forced to climb into a manhole to remove a block. An hour or so later, I got a call from his co-worker, Prasad, who said something had happened. I rushed to the government hospital where his co-workers had taken him,” Yashoda recalls.  

Rao was one of the 43 people who have lost their lives in Andhra Pradesh from 2004 to date, as per data compiled by Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), an organisation working for the eradication of the dehumanising, caste-based practice. Of them, 21 families are yet to receive one or all of the three components — compensation, job, and house. 

As per the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (PEMSR) Act, 2013, no person, local authority or any agency shall employ any person for hazardous cleaning of either a sewer or septic tank. Contravening the provisions will result in imprisonment for up to five years and a fine of up to ₹5 lakh, the Act says.

Further, the Act says that a survey needs to be undertaken when a “municipality has reason to believe that some persons are engaged or employed in manual scavenging”. It has clear provisions for rehabilitation, cash assistance, skill training, and alternate jobs for such people identified as manual scavengers.