Safety first, utility tags behind

MUMBAI, JUNE 22: Efforts of the civic administration to provide protective gear to their conservancy staff may disappear down the drain w...

MUMBAI, JUNE 22: Efforts of the civic administration to provide protective gear to their conservancy staff may disappear down the drain while the plaintive cries of contract workers for the same equipment echo fruitlessly through the confusing labyrinth.

Civic staff say the equipment, ordered from the United States and which has been arriving in consignments since last year, is cumbersome and impedes their movement. Hence, despite the risks, they are unable to squeeze into Mumbai8217;s narrow and archaic sewers in wadder suits and with gas monitors strapped to their backs. Others, who clean out clogged drains and desilt nullahs complain that the equipment assgined to them only adds to their workload. As a result, most of the staff continue to plumb the depths of the city8217;s sewers minus the protective gear.

Chief engineer in charge of sewerage operations, V D Mujumdar, told Express Newsline that the administration had placed orders for the safety equipment two years ago and some of it such as gasmonitors which protect the user from the noxious and foul gases that emanate from the sewers were specifically ordered from the US as quality equipment was not available in India. He says the department has sufficient stock for all the conservancy staff.

Mujumdar does admit to the staff8217;s resistance but dismisses their complaints. 8220;Change always takes time. Only when it is a question of life and death do the workers adhere to the precautionary measures laid down by the BMC,8221; he says.

Senior engineers who oversee conservancy work have now been instructed to ensure that every worker compulsorily uses the safety gear and the staff has also been told to keep tabs on their colleagues. Mujumdar says the workers are also being trained on how to use the equipment it as some of it, like the gas monitors and harnessing belts, need to be handled with care.

However, general secretary of the Municipal Mazdoor Union, Uttan Ghade, says that8217;s only part of the story. Pointing out that the BMC had ordered the gearwithout consulting either the union or the staff, he explains: 8220;Working conditions in the US and in India are vastly different. Therefore it cannot be used here. Workers in Mumbai have to climb into very narrow drains and manholes. Hence it is not possible to use the thick suits and masks,8221; he says.

But, while the staff and administration quibble, contract workers hired for conservancy work by the BMC feel bitter and cheated. Though it took several years of litigation to get both the Supreme Court and Bombay High Court to direct the BMC to provide them with the same gear, the latter is still to comply.

Story continues below this ad

Following a Supreme Court directive on September 23, 1998, the BMC did provide some equipment but the quality was so poor that the suits and masks wore out within a week,8221; says Milind Ranade, president of Shramik, a union of contract workers. However, none has been provided since, he adds.

Ranade says the apex court had finally referred the case back to the high court, which in a July 29, 1998, interimruling after the death of a contract worker at Colaba, had ordered the BMC to provide the equipment to all conservancy workers. Though the BMC had claimed in court that it was doing so, the reality is actually quite different.

Now, for every disgusted Mumbaikar who spits an expletive down a choked sewer, there is a furious contract worker doing the same at the civic administration.