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Bengal

KMC to enhance surveillance after deaths of workers in Kolkata Leather Complex manhole

Kolkata: In the wake of the arrest of a contractor for the deaths of three workers inside the Kolkata Leather Complex manhole during KMDA pipeline work, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has decided to carry out surveillance to ensure that contractors engaged for drainage work do not repeat such negligence.

Following the recent incident, the mayor Firhad Hakim, who is also the KMDA chairman, had questioned why those workers were not given safety equipment. It is learnt that the civic body has decided to conduct surveillance during drainage work to ensure that workers are provided with safety gear whenever it is required, especially when they need to enter manholes for surveys in critical situations.

Most of the desilting works in the city are done using manhole desilting machines instead of sending workers down for the same. However, in case of critical circumstances where the underground situation is to be checked before deploying the machines, the workers are generally given safety gears, said a drainage department official.

Now onwards, KMC would be deploying supervisors who would be monitoring de-silting works throughout to ensure workers’ safety is maintained. However, several projects, especially large-scale ones, are often outsourced to private contractors by the civic body. In such cases, complaints about contractors sending workers into manholes for manual cleaning are rampant. Therefore, the civic body will prioritise vigilance during such work.

Millennium Post had earlier reported how KMC has been able to gradually do away with the practice of manual sewer cleaning and scavenging by procuring desilting machines. An official said that KMC has allotted such machines for the majority of its 144 wards while more will be procured as an addition to the existing stock.

The Supreme Court on January 29 passed directions banning manual scavenging and sewer cleaning in six metropolitan cities, including Kolkata while asking competent authorities to file affidavits by February 13 on exactly when and how such a practice had ceased in their respective cities.

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