VELLORE: A 54-year-old contract sanitation worker of Vellore Corporation died on Friday after accidentally falling into an open sewage drain near Makkan Signal on Bengaluru Road. The deceased, M Murugan, a resident of Perumal Nagar in Keelmonavoor had been working in the corporation for last 15 years.
The incident took place at around 5.30 pm on Friday. While the police denied that Murugan was cleaning the drain, shopkeepers on the road told TNIE they saw Murugan removing waste from the drain without wearing any safety gear. K Allauddin, a shopkeeper who runs a xerox shop just off the spot where the incident took place, said, “He was picking up litter from the drain. He fell inside when he tried to cross it to come to the other side of the drain.”
Other sanitary workers quickly rescued him and rushed him to a GH in Adukkamparai where doctors declared him brought dead. Sources said two other contract workers were working with him to clean the four-and-a-half feet wide drain which was filled with rainwater up to its brim. The drain would be at least 5 ft deep. The Vellore North police have registered a case of unnatural death under section 194 of BNSS. A police officer said, “It is not yet established whether the worker died of asphyxiation by inhaling poisonous gases. He was standing near the spot while other workers were cleaning the drain when he suddenly fell in.”
Vellore SP N Mathivanan told that Murugan’s body was sent to the Adukkamparai GH for postmortem and that the cause of death can be determined only after its completion. Despite multiple attempts by TNIE, Vellore Corporation officials could not be reached for comment on the issue.
K Praveen, another shopkeeper said, “The drain had been kept open without any barricades since 2022 when around 500 meters of the road was dug up to clear a block in the drain. The sandbags were kept as barricades only after yesterday’s incident. Many motorists have accidentally fallen into the drain and it looks like it’s a part of the road. Despite multiple complaints to the collector and the corporation, no action has been taken to solve it.” The shopkeepers also allege that the corporation says the road belongs to State Highways while the Highways in turn say they cannot fix the sewage issues.
At a protest held by contract sanitary workers on Thursday, multiple workers told TNIE they do not receive safety gear for garbage segregation. On Tuesday, workers were seen cleaning Nicolson canal without safety gear. As per corporation rules, Corporation Commissioner P Janaki Raveendran said at the recently held council meeting only permanent sanitary workers of the corporation are supposed to desilt the drains. Given this rule, sanitary workers questioned how the corporation had assigned the task to contract workers.