Date:07/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/07/stories/2009010759150300.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Sewer cleaning claims one more life

Vidya Venkat

CHENNAI: Ettaiyappan (50), a permanent sanitary worker employed with Chennai Metrowater, died while cleaning a sewer hole in Vepery High Road here on Tuesday evening, the police said.

Police have registered a case. The body was retrieved by the Fire and Rescue Services personnel and sent for post-mortem, they said.

L. Sunderrajan, North Chennai district secretary of Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU), alleged that the worker was made to enter the sewer hole after it turned dark so that nobody could know about it.

In October 2008, the Madras High Court passed an order prohibiting the entry of humans into manholes for cleaning work. Manual sewer cleaning operations had claimed the lives of 17 sewer cleaners in the city since 2003, according to the details submitted in the court by the civic body.