Questions raised against WB's sanitation infra after 2 workers die in Hooghly after entering septic tank

Kolkata, Aug 8: In West Bengal's Hooghly district, two sanitation workers have reportedly died after entering a septic tank, police said. According to police's reports, the deceased have been identified as Ganesh Manna and Subrata Das, both aged 40 years.

 

 

 

As per the police's statements, “The two workers had come to remove a construction plank inside the septic tank in a house in Singur’s Ratanpur village. The tank was built two to three months ago." The police further added that one of the workers first entered the tank after opening the lid while his colleague waited outside.

 

 

Police further said that “When he did not get any response from his colleague after waiting for a few minutes, he too entered the tank. But none of them came out." Though fire brigade personnel and police rescued the workers and rushed them to a hospital, both were declared dead by doctors. According to the reports, the police have started an investigation into the incident.

 

 

 

 

However, this is not an isolated incident of inconsideration of the lives of several sanitation workers in West Bengal, West Bengal waste management system and related infrastructure has claimed several lives till date, with the state government unable to address the issue capably. In a similar incident that took place in Feb 2021, four sanitation workers were killed due to suffocation while working to improve sewerage operations at Kudghat, Kolkata.

 

 

In the 2022 statement that the then Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Ramdas Athawale shared during the winter session of the parliament, he provided state wise statistical data of the death of manual scavengers. According to the data, while most of the states accounted for zero deaths of manual scavengers, West Bengal accounted for 10, 0, 2, 0, 4, 0 deaths for the years of 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022 respectively.

 

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