Hyderabad: Poisonous Gas Inside Manhole Claims 4 Lives

Hyderabad: Four men including three manhole-cleaning sanitary workers, choke to death in Madhapur — the city's IT area, after inhaling poisonous gases like methane that are usually emitted inside a closed manhole. The fourth man was a Samaritan, cab driver Gangadhar, who saw the trio going in to clean, but not exiting the manhole for a significant amount of time. He lowered himself to rescue them but did not come out alive himself.

That the tragedy occurred just 36 hours before the nation turned 70 only emphasizes that India@70 is still inside a manhole. That even seven decades later, India has not been able to give freedom to sanitary workers who have to clean the city’s sewage that includes faeces, dead rodents and garbage, manually. It is something that no country that believes in dignity of a human being would do.

You would think that the more progressive part of Hyderabad, that showcases its T-Hub, its start-up ecosystem and software export figures to the world, would move away from this primitive practice of employing men to clean the underbelly of the city. But the tragedy shows that if you scratch the veneer of fake sophistry and gloss, everyone remains logged into the same abominable practice — of treating some men worse than animals.

In this case, like it happens in most cases, the workers did not wear safety gear when they got into the 25 feet deep manhole. They were apparently unskilled labourers, who walked into a deathtrap. The compensation amount of Rs 2.5 lakh that the government has announced is nothing but a way of washing its hands of any guilt.

The Hyderabad Water Board officials say the agency which undertook this cleaning up job had been blacklisted for similar negligence earlier and undertook this task without permission.

Even though the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013 had spoken of eliminating hazardous manual cleaning of sewer and septic tanks and their rehabilitation, the action on the ground has belied the promise. It is almost farcical that only death gets the families of victims some compensation but in case of the workers suffering injuries or infections, there is no social security cover.