Life on the line: Linemen in Noida count job hazards that sometimes turn fatal

A resident of Bihar’s Araria district, Ansari has been working as a lineman at UP Power Corporation Limited’s (UPPCL) Noida unit for the last 20 years.

The 2019 incident was not Ansari’s only brush with death. “In 2021, I was at work on top of a pole when electricity was switched on. I felt the current pass my entire body and lost my balance. I fell down on another wire. By the time I was tossed to the ground, half of my body was in flames,” he says. “Main bach gaya, par sab nahi bach pate (I survived but many don’t),” he says, as he rolls up his sleeves to show the burnt skin of his left arm.

Even as Ansari continues working as a lineman, 23-year-old Amar Pal left his job after a narrow escape in Noida’s Sector 24 earlier this year. “It was June 14. I was repairing a line; suddenly, the power was switched on. The current was so strong that my body flew in the air. I fell on a tree and got stuck in its branches. Had I had fallen on the ground, I would have died,” he says. Pal left his job within a fortnight. “Maut dekhi thi samne se (I had seen death staring me in the eye).”

(Clockwise from top) Linemen at work in Noida’s Sector 63; Kamil Ansari shows the scars on his right hand and left arm. (Photos: Tashi Tobgyal)

Ansari and Pal are among the fortunate ones who lived to tell the tale. According to the records of Noida’s power distribution body – Vidyut Nagariya Vitran Mandal – 29 linemen were electrocuted to death while 10 others have been rendered disabled since January 2017 in Gautam Buddha Nagar. Their stories have one common thread: like Ansari and Pal, they were repairing a wire on the top of an electricity pole when power department officials mistakenly switched on the electricity from the feeder. This mistake has been repeated 39 times in the last six years and a half.

In the last two months, two linemen were electrocuted to death in Greater Noida while two others suffered serious injuries. On June 15, Yunus Khan, 26, was electrocuted to death in Dadri. Sakhabat Khan, a 40-year-old lineman, was killed under similar circumstances at Shakarpur village, Greater Noida, on July 27. Both were employed at the Noida and Greater Noida branch, respectively, of the UPPCL office.

“Each time we climb a pole, we walk into the lap of death. You are lucky if the power isn’t switched on while you are working up there,” says Ansari.

Chief Electricity Officer, Noida, Harish Bansal likens the job to a posting at the border. “They (linemen) are aware of the risk. If someone dies at the border, will anyone complain? It is the same when a lineman dies.”

He says that “the death (of a lineman) happens because of miscommunication between him and the service operator”.

“There is more than one lineman correcting the fault at different sub-stations, which are interconnected. When a lineman calls to confirm that the work is done, the service operator confuses him with someone else and turns on the feeder (the power supply),” Bansal says.

Even though the linemen work for UPPCL, they are employed by a third party to whom the work has been outsourced. “UPPCL initiates a tender and interested agencies bid. After that, it is their responsibility to ensure the safety of the lineman,” Bansal says. “Legally, the safety of these linemen is not our (UPPCL) responsibility.”

The explanation by UPPCL, however, does little to convince the families that have lost their loved ones.

It has been over a year since Vishal, 23, died of electrocution on May 16, 2023, but the mourning at his two-room brick house at Kaimrala Chakrasenpur village in Greater Noida’s Dadri has not ended. He was employed by M/S Sarlok Services, a third-party contractor. His scooter is still parked outside in the tiny courtyard. “My son had been asked to repair a wire on top of a transformer…they suddenly switched on the power. His body burst like a firecracker,” Vishal’s father Sukh Pal, 50, says. Vishal’s mother had died a month earlier. “My wife was lucky that she died before seeing her son get killed in such a brutal manner…” he says.

Sukh Pal has another son, Vicky, who works as a manual labourer, and a daughter.

“When my son died, they (the officials) told us that I will get a pension and a plot but they gave nothing,” Sukh Pal says.

The family had asked the UPPCL to give them a compensation of at least Rs 12 lakh, the authority handed them a cheque of Rs 8 lakh. “It bounced four times,” Vicky says. “When we confronted the officials, they gave us Rs 6 lakh in cash. They said Rs 4 lakh is the life insurance amount while Rs 2 lakh was contributed by the staff at the Greater Noida’s electricity office from their salary.” Since then, there has been no word from UPPCL officials.

Vishal’s 19-year-old widow Chanchal still lives with her in-laws; they had got married only a month before his death. “The officers visited our home and promised that Chanchal would be given a job and pension,” Vicky says. “But nothing of that sort happened”.

Chief Electricity Officer Bansal says there is no provision for jobs. “But we have given pension to the families once the heir is declared,” he says. “If the families have not received the pension, it is because they never produced the required documents”.

Bansal says the lineman’s job is like that of a daily wage labourer, but once they have worked for 7-8 years, they are absorbed as permanent employees. “Then they become eligible for the insurance,” Bansal says. “Those who have either seven years of experience or a diploma from an ITI (Industrial Training Institute) come under the skilled category. Those who have studied till Class 8 come under unskilled labourer category and can be employed as unskilled linemen,” Bansal says.

Most of the linemen working in Gautam Buddha Nagar belong to the unskilled category. “If you have an Aadhaar Card, a PAN card and you can climb up the pole, you can become a lineman,” says Sundar Gautam, a service operator at Noida’s Sector 18 electricity office.

When Gautam was asked about the training of the linemen, he says, “They learn on the job from other experienced linemen.”

Adarsh Verma, 24, is a lineman working at the Noida’s Sector 21A Electricity Office. “I got the job through the junior engineer working here,” he says. “Later, Globetech Creation Private Limited hired me. I earn Rs 9,000 per month.” Verma, a Noida Sector 8 resident, says he completed his graduation (B Pharma) in 2017. “When I didn’t find a job anywhere, I became a lineman. I had no choice,” he says. As linemen, Verma says, they are on duty round the clock. “I have to respond to calls at any time of the day,” he says. And what about safety? “I have a safety belt… a rope made of jute. I tie it to my back when I climb up a pole,” says Verma.

He recalls an incident in May when he saw his friend Mukesh Sharma hanging on a tree after a fall from an electric pole he was repairing. “Fortunately, he was saved,” he says. “It is a risky job. Every morning when I leave home, I am scared. It could be my last day alive.”

But why does he still continue? “I don’t know any other work…The only thing that keeps me going is that if something happens to me, my family will get an insurance of Rs 5 lakh.”

Even though the life insurance amount of a lineman has been increased by the UP government to Rs 7.5 lakh, there is no compensation if they are critically injured on the job. In fact, there is no proper record of linemen injured at work. Data accessed by The Indian Express shows that in the past six years, 10 linemen suffered serious injuries while working on the electric pole; the names of Ansari, Pal and Sharma do not appear in the list.

A majority of the linemen electrocuted in Noida are in the age group of 20 to 30 with a monthly salary of just Rs 9,000.

Ashok Kumar was 30 when he was electrocuted to death while repairing a wire atop an electricity pole on June 24 last year. Like Vishal, he was also employed with M/S Sarlok Services. The story of his death, too, is the same: electricity was switched on without ascertaining whether he was still working on the wire or not. He has left behind his wife, 29-year-old Bhudehi, and six children.

Bhudehi was almost eight months pregnant when Kumar was electrocuted just 100 metres away from his home in Munjkheda village in Greater Noida’s Dankaur. “He could not see Mohan,” Bhudehi says as she points towards her 11-month-old son in her lap. A picture of Kumar hangs on the wall of the family’s two-roomed house. Bhudehi says she deposited the insurance amount as a fixed deposit because “that’s all my six children (three daughters and three sons) have now”. The oldest child, a 10-year-old girl called Kanishka, studies in a government school. “They (officials) told me they would get me a job and the education of my kids will be free. But they came, consoled us, and left,” she says.

Bhudehi remembers the day of Kumar’s death as if it was yesterday.

“I saw his phone lying on the ground. I spotted my brother-in-law hitting the pole with a wooden stick. I looked up and saw him (Kumar) hanging on the wire. I snatched the stick and kept hitting the pole. Then I fainted,” she recalls. “When I woke up, he was gone”. She says her husband had no protective gear on him. “He would climb up the pole with the help of a knotted jute rope,” she says.

“Equipment dena toh contractor ki zimmedari hai (It is the responsibility of the contractor to give them the equipment),” says Chief Electricity Officer Bansal.

Most of the linemen are hired by a third party — contractors like M/S Sarlok Services, Rupal Engineering Corporation, M/S Becil, M/S Easy Source and M/S Solanki Services — in Gautam Buddha Nagar.

“We give them rubber gloves and caps,” says Sarlok Services’ Manager, Lokpal Singh. “But if they do not use it, that is not our responsibility,” he says.

Bansal agrees. “Now, if there are five helmets in a house and a child in the family, who is without a helmet, meets with an accident, the family cannot be blamed. It is the same.”

Satinder Singh, a resident of Firozpur village in Khurja, Bulandshahr, lost his brother Harveer Singh, 28, on April 25, 2021, when he was electrocuted at work in Raghupura village. “A lawyer charged me Rs 50,000 to help me get the insurance cheque. When my brother died, the officials told us to throw the body away because of COVID (pandemic). For five days, my brother was struggling at the hospital. Everything was shut,” he recalls.

“They (officials) told me they will give me a pension,” says Harveer Singh’s mother. “But they gave nothing”.

The family says they spent Rs 90,000 on his treatment at a private hospital in Khurja. “That money was also not reimbursed to us,” Singh says.

Harveer’s other brother Mesh Pal says he moved court when the police refused to register an FIR. “The case has been pending at the Allahabad High Court for the last three years,” Mesh Pal says. “We want the Junior Engineer and the Service Operator to be punished. They killed him.” Harveer Singh was employed with M/S Becil Services.

And then there are families of deceased linemen who are yet to receive even the insurance money. Yunus Khan, a linemen from Jalalabad in Greater Noida, was electrocuted to death on June 15. His brother Yousuf says the family is still making rounds of the electricity office in Noida to get the compensation. Yunus was employed with M/S Sarlok Services. The family has filed an FIR against the junior engineer; he was transferred in July. “A few days ago, a man in our village informed us that the junior engineer wanted to pay us Rs 6 lakh from his own pocket, but then he was transferred,” says Yousuf.