Arecent exposure in a leading daily has highlighted the deplorable condition of sewage workers of the Pune Municipal Corporation, also known as ‘conservation staff’. The photograph in the newspaper shows a worker having to wade through nearly neck-deep sewage in order to unclog a drain.

According to the data reported, in two and a half years, 227 sewage workers in Pune have died out of a total of 6826, i.e. an average mortality rate of 1.3%, which is very high for any occupation. These deaths have been reported among all ages of workers, indicating that it is not age but the working conditions that may be responsible for the deaths. While deaths have been reported due to jaundice, TB, cancer and heart ailments, a whopping 70 out of 107 deaths in the year 2006-2007 are reported to have occurred due to ‘sickness’.

Stagnant sewage in over-filled sewers, with little or no air, causes release of toxic gases which these workers are forced to breathe all the time. Further, chemical and biological agents present in the sewage can cause serious infections, leading to death over a period of time. Given the design of the sewers, the whole body of the workers is exposed to the sewage and therefore prone to get infected.

In this situation, the belated promise of the Municipal Commissioner to provide gumboots and gloves to the sewage workers (which means that till now they had been working without even proper boots and gloves!) is unlikely to mitigate the fatal hazards these workers face. In fact it is shocking that in this day and age, when our rulers boast of providing access to advanced technology, that a human being should have to enter the sewer lines to clear them. Sewer lines and manholes need to be designed to allow cleaning from outside with appropriate equipment, as well as sewers which can handle the amount of sewage disposed into them and maintain the flow without exhausting the air and causing release of toxic gases.

Although this is technically feasible, it is currently not done because the government and municipal authorities are not interested in investing on infrastructure. Most of the sewer lines are several decades old and with growing population concentrations in urban centres, they are unable to handle the amount of sewage disposed into them, leading to sewer lines frequently getting clogged. This is a growing problem in almost all major cities. But instead of tackling this problem, human beings are being sent down to their death in the sewers, revealing the utter callousness and cruelty of the system we have today.

It is essential that this system be put an end to, so that more and more workers are not condemned to sickness and death; instead, the safety and well-being of the working people becomes the prime concern of every government.