Only sanitary workers must be shareholders of a group management company aimed at transforming them into sanipreneurs, orders Madras High Court

Madras High Court orders inclusion of manual scavengers as shareholders in GMC for CMWSSB contracts, addressing petitioner's concerns.

None but those involved in manual scavenging in the past must be included as shareholders of a Group Management Company (GMC) created for the purpose of turning them in to entrepreneurs/sanipreneurs through grant of Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) contracts, the Madras High Court has ordered.

A Division Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and V. Lakshminarayanan passed the orders after finding that the GMC named Gen Green Logistics Private Limited, which had entered into a tripartite agreement with CMWSSB as well as the Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI), did not have even a single sanitary worker as a shareholder.

When the judges wanted to know why not even one of the 213 sanitary workers, identified for the grant of CMWSSB contracts for maintenance of sewerage system for seven years, had been made a shareholder of Gen Green Logistics, DICCI director Ravikumar Narra readily agreed to rectify the defect and include the sanitary workers as shareholders in the GMC.

Expressing their happiness over Mr. Narra agreeing to ensure that the monetary fruits of the contracts reach only the deserving, the judges ordered rechecking of the list of 213 beneficiaries identified by DICCI to ensure that the list contained only core sanitary workers and legal heirs of deceased sanitary workers. They made it clear that the exercise must be completed within six weeks.

The Bench directed CMWSSB to share a copy of the revised list with YouTuber ‘Savukku’ Shankar alias A. Shankar, who had filed a public interest litigation petition, since he had claimed that the present list contained the names of some advocates. It however held that there was no necessity to order a CBI probe, as sought by the petitioner, regarding the implementation of the sanipreneur scheme.

“Since the issues highlighted by the petitioner have been redressed on account of the fair concession made by Mr. Ravikumar Narra and the non adversarial stand taken by the official respondents (Tamil Nadu government and CMWSSB), there is no need to direct the CBI to register a case on the petitioner’s complaint,” the Bench concluded.