The Gujarat High Court Tuesday issued a notice to the state government in a plea seeking the Court’s directions to initiate action under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, against nodal officers responsible for the death of manual scavengers. The application, filed by Ahmedabad-based NGO Manav Garima as part of an existing PIL, has been filed following the deaths of two sanitation workers in Rajkot City on March 21. Noting that the Gujarat government through a resolution had fixed the responsibility of respective local bodies for payment of compensation and prevention of such incidents of death, the application is also seeking compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the next of kin of the deceased. It has also been submitted that the Gujarat government through a circular in 2019 had also stipulated municipalities and municipal corporations to ensure that no person is permitted to enter manholes for cleaning drainage lines or septic tanks and nodal officers/chief officers were personally entrusted responsibility to ensure the same and initiate criminal action against offenders. According to the petitioner, of the 152 such deaths of sanitation workers in the state while cleaning drains between 1993 and 2014, the government has not paid compensation of Rs 10 lakh each to 26 families till date. It has also been submitted that since the main PIL was filed in 2016, 16 workers have died and their families have not been paid compensation. Since the commencement of the Act in 2013, 45 instances wherein 95 workers died while cleaning septic tanks have occurred. “This fact itself shows that the State has miserably failed to enforce Section 7 of the Act in letter and spirit. It is high time to direct all authorities to enforce Section 7 of the Act. and totally prohibit entry of any person in septic tank for cleaning of sewer so as to prevent further recurrence of such incidents,” the petitioner contended. Submitting that the state by an April 2021 GR resolved to constitute an Emergency Response Sanitation Unit (ERSU) to ensure that no such incident takes place and to carry out cleaning operations with mechanised machines, the petitioner stated that no such ERSU has been set up by any of the municipal corporations or municipalities in Gujarat. The application has sought the Court’s orders to the state to immediately set up ERSUs, make them operational and allocate the necessary budget for the same. The division bench of Acting Chief Justice AJ Desai and Justice Biren Vaishnav issued the notice Tuesday and kept the same returnable by May 1.
