NHRC notice to Gujarat, Haryana govts over death of 7 sanitation workers

The workers were not provided with safety gear in both the incidents, NHRC statement said

The National Human Rights Commission has issued notices to the state governments of Haryana and Gujarat over the reported death of seven sanitation workers in two separate incidents in Jhajjar and Bharuch districts recently, officials said on Thursday.

Reportedly, the workers were not provided with safety gear in both the incidents, the Commission said in a statement.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken suo moto cognisance of media reports about the deaths of seven sanitation workers in two different incidents in Jhajjar and Bharuch districts of Haryana and Gujarat, respectively on April 4. It has issued notices to the state governments through their chief secretaries and DGPs, calling for reports into the incidents within six weeks, it said.

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Issuing the notices, the Commission observed that the contents of the media reports indicate "negligence" of the authorities concerned, resulting in the "violation of the victims' right to life".

"Just because the incident has occurred on private property, this cannot allow the authorities concerned to get rid of their responsibility of supervising such hazardous activities being conducted under their jurisdiction," the rights panel said.

The state governments' reports must inform the action taken against the erring public servants and the status of relief and rehabilitation provided to the aggrieved families, officials said.

These must also contain steps taken or proposed to be taken to spread awareness and to sensitise the public at large towards zero tolerance of death of sanitary workers, be it in public or private work, by displaying or portraying the penal consequences of such employment in hazardous cleaning without following the due procedure mentioned in the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 as well as in the NHRC Advisory on Protection of Human Rights of the person engaged in Manual Scavenging or Hazardous Cleaning on September 24, 2021, the statement said.

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The Commission further observed that such tragic incidents are being reported from several parts of the country in spite of specific judgments given by the Supreme Court and guidelines issued from time to time by different government agencies as well as the NHRC advisory to all authorities concerned in states, Union territories, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

Sewage workers are still exposed to extreme danger and subjected to indignity by the public authorities, the statement said.

According to the media reports, carried out on April 5, four people died in Bahadurgarh area of Jhajjar, Haryana while fitting pipes inside a septic tank in a private property. In the other incident, three people died while cleaning a drainage line in Bharuch district of Gujarat, it added.