They clear up urban filth with their bare hands

They clear up urban filth with their bare hands

The Hindu

Pourakarmikas are constantly exposed to infections and disease in the course of their work in cities and towns


Bangalore: Babaiah, a municipal cleaner, emerges drenched in filth from a blocked manhole in the busy N.R. Colony bus stand. The people around him hold their noses and step back. This particular manhole needed to be cleaned manually, and Babaiah was there to do it. In many city municipal council areas around Bangalore, septic tanks are still in use, and `scavengers' like Babaiah have to clean them out.

Another class of workers, pourakarmikas, who are government employees, remove stinking garbage and waste from hotels, clinics and slaughterhouses using small pushcarts. The garbage is then manually loaded onto corporation trucks in places such as Anjaneya Temple Street in Malleswaram, which have several waste collection points.

Narasamma and five others in her family are employed as sweepers by contractors in Subedarpalya. Saroja, Jayamma and Rajamma, her co-workers, complain that they get frequent chest pain and fever since they work amid garbage most of the day.

Achamma of Seshadripuram, another pourakarmika, broke her leg in an accident but received no compensation. Municipal cleaners like her work in difficult and unhygienic conditions.

Many of them go down manholes, some as deep as 20 ft, and get into soak pits and septic tanks and collect and load garbage/waste onto trucks.

The manholes come under the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) and the soak pits/septic tanks are found in the municipal council areas under the Departments of Municipal Administration.

The BWSSB has 64 service stations for managing 1.60 lakh manholes, but only a small group of 236 permanent employees to clear blockages. They have no protection against bacteria, cockroaches, rodents and harmful gases such as methane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulphide, benzene and ammonia. There have been cases of cleaners falling unconscious inside manholes.

Chest pain, typhoid, polio and leptospirosis are common among such workers. They contract skin diseases through cuts received from glass and metal pieces in manholes and soak pits. Most of the municipal councils and village panchayats have not recruited scavengers/sweepers on a permanent basis.

According to M. Subbarayudu, general secretary of a federation of seven pourakarmika associations, several workers have died of water-borne diseases, but contractors who employ them wash their hands of by paying a few hundred rupees to the families of the workers.

Poorly paid

Citing the report of the I.P.D. Salappa Committee on Improvement of Living and Working Conditions of Sweepers and Scavengers, Mr. Subbarayudu says Bangalore city requires at least 15,000 pourakarmikas, but there are only 4,000 permanent and 7,000 contract employees. To make matters worse, the workers get a measly sum of Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 1,500 a month of which contractors take Rs. 300 from each, he said. Incidentally, pourakarmikas in Gulbarga get Rs. 4,900 a month, thanks to the initiative taken by the former Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh. This should be extended throughout the State, says Mr. Subbarayudu. They clear up urban filth with their bare hands

T.S. Ranganna

Pourakarmikas are constantly exposed to infections and disease in the course of their work in cities and towns



DAILY GRIND: Contract workers loading garbage onto trucks in Bangalore. — Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Bangalore: Babaiah, a municipal cleaner, emerges drenched in filth from a blocked manhole in the busy N.R. Colony bus stand. The people around him hold their noses and step back. This particular manhole needed to be cleaned manually, and Babaiah was there to do it. In many city municipal council areas around Bangalore, septic tanks are still in use, and `scavengers' like Babaiah have to clean them out.

Another class of workers, pourakarmikas, who are government employees, remove stinking garbage and waste from hotels, clinics and slaughterhouses using small pushcarts. The garbage is then manually loaded onto corporation trucks in places such as Anjaneya Temple Street in Malleswaram, which have several waste collection points.

Narasamma and five others in her family are employed as sweepers by contractors in Subedarpalya. Saroja, Jayamma and Rajamma, her co-workers, complain that they get frequent chest pain and fever since they work amid garbage most of the day.

Achamma of Seshadripuram, another pourakarmika, broke her leg in an accident but received no compensation. Municipal cleaners like her work in difficult and unhygienic conditions.

Many of them go down manholes, some as deep as 20 ft, and get into soak pits and septic tanks and collect and load garbage/waste onto trucks.

The manholes come under the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) and the soak pits/septic tanks are found in the municipal council areas under the Departments of Municipal Administration.

The BWSSB has 64 service stations for managing 1.60 lakh manholes, but only a small group of 236 permanent employees to clear blockages. They have no protection against bacteria, cockroaches, rodents and harmful gases such as methane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulphide, benzene and ammonia. There have been cases of cleaners falling unconscious inside manholes.

Chest pain, typhoid, polio and leptospirosis are common among such workers. They contract skin diseases through cuts received from glass and metal pieces in manholes and soak pits. Most of the municipal councils and village panchayats have not recruited scavengers/sweepers on a permanent basis.

According to M. Subbarayudu, general secretary of a federation of seven pourakarmika associations, several workers have died of water-borne diseases, but contractors who employ them wash their hands of by paying a few hundred rupees to the families of the workers.

Poorly paid

Citing the report of the I.P.D. Salappa Committee on Improvement of Living and Working Conditions of Sweepers and Scavengers, Mr. Subbarayudu says Bangalore city requires at least 15,000 pourakarmikas, but there are only 4,000 permanent and 7,000 contract employees. To make matters worse, the workers get a measly sum of Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 1,500 a month of which contractors take Rs. 300 from each, he said. Incidentally, pourakarmikas in Gulbarga get Rs. 4,900 a month, thanks to the initiative taken by the former Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh. This should be extended throughout the State, says Mr. Subbarayudu.