Candlelight vigil for two who died in septic tank

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Bahutva Karnataka, a civil rights group, held a candlelight vigil outside the Prestige Falcon city apartments where the two sewage treatment plant (STP) workers were found dead under mysterious circumstances on Saturday evening. Despite the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (MS Act, 2013), which prohibits the practice of manual scavenging, it is prevalent across the country.

According to the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK), a body under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, 1,054 people have died till December 31, 2022, due to hazardous cleaning of sewer and septic tanks. The highest numbers of such deaths have been reported from Tamil Nadu, where 231 persons have died, while Karnataka accounts for 86 deaths.

“Such issues come to light only when incidents of death begin to prop up but people carry on with this work day in and day out. The government is supposed to identify them and rehabilitate such workers but this has not been done,” Advocate Maitreyi Krishnan, who has raised the issue of manual scavenging in the Karnataka high court, has said.

Bahutva Karnataka has alleged that the apartment management shut the gates during the candle vigil and did not allow them to share the information on the illegalities with the residents. The deceased were identified as Ravi Kumar (29), from Gollarahatti village of Koratagere taluk in Tumakuru district, and Dilip Kumar Jana (25), a native of Odisha.

The two were Bio Centra India employees. They were working on a sewage water treatment plant at the Prestige Falcon City Apartment on Kanakapura Road in Anjanadri Layout when the accident happened around 7 pm.