Penalise contractors violating Manual Scavenging Act: Commission member

Collector K Veera Raghav Rao, along with officials from various departments participated in the meeting. officials from Madurai Corporation, Rural Development, Labour department, Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department and TADCO took part in the review meeting and explained to the members about the steps and welfare measures taken up for development of sanitary workers.

Corporation Commissioner, Aneesh Giri, said that manual scavenging is not prevalent in Madurai Corporation and all the sanitary workers including contract workers are paid minimum wages of Rs 320 a day. Other benefits such as ESI, PF are also given to them and in case of death during manual scavenging, a sum of Rs10 lakh as compensation is paid to the family members, said Aneesh.

However, sanitary workers refuted the claims of Corporation Commissioner. Bose, a sanitary worker from Madurai Corporation said that the contract workers are harassed by private contractors and are forcing them to indulge in manual scavenging. Also, equipment such as masks, aprons and even tricycles are not provided to the sanitary workers, lamented Bose.

Jagadish then directed the police officials to arrest contractors who force sanitary workers into manual scavenging  He also directed the Corporation Commissioner and officials attached to District Rural Development Agency to give proper equipment to the sanitary workers and also give them necessary leave without cutting their salaries.