DHARMAPURI: CITU and AITUC filed petitions with Safai Karmachari Commission, SC/ST commission, and Dharmapuri administration, after a video of a man involved with manual scavenging in Marandahalli panchayat went viral on social media. In this video, a sanitary worker is seen cleaning a toilet with bare hands.
Commenting on the matter, CITU member Selvam Raja said, “The incident occurred sometime last year in Ward 15 of the Marandahalli panchayat. Shortly after the executive officer Chitrakani inspected the public toilets in Ambedkar Nagar, the Supervisor of the panchayat, Sankaran, urged two sanitary workers to clean it. The two workers had initially refused to clean the toilets because of its unclean state. However, later the supervisor threatened the workers that he would mark them absent and dock pay. Following this, they had no choice but to clean the toilets.”
The videos stand as testimony that manual scavenging is still persistent in the district. Severe action must be taken against the panchayat officials, he added. N Saravanan, of panchayat employees association said, “In ward 15, the toilets are in a poor state because of the lack of water supply. Had the panchayat provided proper water connections, the toilets would not be in such a condition. Action must be taken under Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.”
When TNIE spoke to sanitary workers in the panchayat, they said, “Usually, the officials do not ask us to clean toilets. But in some cases, we are asked to clean the toilet, but we refuse to do it. However, there are still cases where people clean toilets.
Commenting on the matter, Collector K Santhi said, “We have conducted an investigation and I inspected the panchayat multiple times. In the reports, we found that a few weeks before the incident, the EO had dismissed a sanitary worker who had received employment illegally. The person who was dismissed was a close kin of one of the sanitary workers seen in the video.”
Moreover, several sanitary workers in Marandahalli panchayat officials said there is no order, verbal or otherwise, to clean toilets. It seems like a motivated attack on the executive officer, Chitrakani, out of personal grievance. The district administration will ensure that such incidents do not occur again. We have issued notices to all town panchayats and sensitized the sanitary workers, she added.