Most residents are unaware the machine is rented to citizens whenever necessary. The CMC is accused of such ignorance among the citizens, some of who add that they have been refused use of the machine when they applied for it.
The City has no open tanks as inspection chambers, only septic tanks, which can be cleaned using sucking machines. The machines are rented out at Rs 800 per day, said the CMC officers. Ironically, however, the sole machine the CMC has is seldom used.
The fact was pointed out by Naveen Raj, commissioner of the Department for Social Welfare, on Tuesday, when he visited the city to investigate the matter of the deaths of three Safai Karmacharis. He also expressed dissatisfaction about the negligence of the CMC to spread awareness in this regard.
He instructed the CMC officers to submit files related to sucking machines to Manoj Kumar Meena, the Deputy Commissioner. Citizens have to inevitably clean the septic tanks whenever they are full, as the city is yet to get underground drains. However, the sole sucking machine of the CMC is always in use, or the CMC staff are indifferent to the requests of the citizens, the latter are forced to depend on Safai Karmacharis.
It is a job of a couple of hours but citizens are charged thousands of rupees to clean the septic tanks. For Karmacharis, it proves a profitable job.
In the backdrop of the circumstances, the CMC warning that use of manual labour to clean the tanks proves dangerous was thrown to the wind. The attraction of money was too strong for the Karmacharis.
Currently, the 140 public toilets in the city too are cleaned using the sucking machine. Therefore, the CMC had not bothered to spread awareness among the citizens about the use of the machine.
Also, the machine did not work in the inspection chambers if the water level was too low. The CMC has no sucking and jet machine to fill in enough water into the chambers and then empty them.
Four months ago, when Krishnamurthy, a member of the National Commission for Safai Karmacharis, visited the city, the Deputy Commissioner had instructed the CMC to purchase a sucking and jet machine. But the order has not been put into action. Sources inform, the CMC has no such plans for the near future.
As such, although there is urgent necessity to mechanise the cleaning process, lack of commitment in the officers is forcing workers to climb into the dangerous inspection chambers.
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