HYDERABAD: Working without any safety gears or harnesses, the lives of workers engaged in the restoration of Golconda Fort are always at a threat. These workers can been seen at a height of 40ft, balancing their way on thin rusty steel pipes attending to the much-needed repairs on boundary wall. The workers are currently making the wall water tight so that rain water doesn’t seep into it and destroy the binding material.
The pipes, bound together with nuts and bolts, make for a rather flimsy-looking scaffold. At a time, when the group of five-six work together, the scaffold can be seen swaying from the pressure of the workers’ movement.Not just the workers on the scaffold, the danger lies on the ground level too — rather on the water. Entrusted with picking up plastic and similar such materials littered in the tank opposite to the ASI office, a worker can be seen going about his job on a makeshift boat made out of thermocol.
With various pieces of thermocol bound together, the worker jumps onto the roughly 5-feet structure and paddles with his hand to the littered spots. The tank on which he does his job is 3m deep.However, unperturbed are the workers. Mallesh, head mason of the group has been engaged in the Golconda Fort restoration work for the last 20 years.
In fact, Milan Kumar Chauley, the Superintending Archaeologist of ASI, Hyderabad Circle, said, “We have offered them safety gears several times. However, they say it makes them more uncomfortable and that they cannot work like that. It’s actually the opposite. We have seen instances of workers injuring themselves when harnessed or using machines to work with,” he added.