Want justice, says sanitation worker fired over manhole row

MUMBAI: On August 31, sanitation worker Satish Chavan's photograph appeared in a national newspaper. He was neck deep in a manhole, his hands and face unencumbered by safety gear. At the time, Chavan claims that he had never been told by his employer-Aryan Pumps and Enviro Solutions, a contractor employed by BMC's stormwater drain department-that he wasn't permitted to enter manholes because the Supreme Court had criminalized entering sewer lines without safety gear in 2014. Though machines now do the bulk of the work, Chavan says supervisors still order labourers to climb in if a suction pipe gets stuck or a rock obstructs the drain. About a fortnight after the article was published, Chavan (29) was asked to sign an undertaking promising not to enter a manhole. Then, on September 20, he received a show-cause notice accusing him of 'misconduct' because of the same photograph. He was accused of breaking his contract though he had signed the undertaking after the picture was published. This was followed by a second show-cause notice and finally a termination letter citing reasons ranging from drinking on the job to fighting with other employees and entering manholes despite signing an undertaking to the contrary. Chavan, who has been with the firm since 2011, is flummoxed. "I was given an employee award so how can they claim I was drinking on the job?" he asks, before rummaging through his backpack to pull out a plastic red-and-gold trophy. "I was even asked to do demonstrations for new employees where I would enter manholes," says the class XII dropout who lives in Diva. TOI contacted Niraj Aurangabadwala, senior manager projects at Aryan, but was told that the company has no statement to offer at this time. "Why would the company want our members to sign a letter promising not to enter the gutter? Is it a place they enjoy?" asks Milind Ranade from Maharashtra Municipal Kamgar Union. "The contractor is trying to save its own skin." Since October 23, Chavan has been protesting at Azad Maidan. He sits with 17 other men whose jobs have been terminated by different contractors because they objected to receiving less than the minimum wage decided by BMC. About five days into his protest, the contractor decided to conduct an inquiry and ordered Chavan to attend hearings in Pune. The date for his second hearing is still to be finalized. Over the last seven years, Chavan has contracted malaria and dengue, while other sanitation workers have gotten fungal and respiratory tract infections from entering fetid gutters, teeming with cockroaches. Despite being his family's main breadwinner, Chavan never told his parents and two sisters what his job entailed. "They would have forced me to quit because I was cleaning other people's filth." But after the newspaper published Chavan's picture and he got fired, the cat was out of the bag. Now, they are urging him to end his protest and find another job. They are worried that Chavan will join the ranks of manual scavengers who have died from asphyxiation or from inhaling the poisonous gases that build up in sewers. According to the National Commission for Safai Karamacharis, at least one worker has died while cleaning sewers or septic tanks every five days since the beginning of 2017. But Chavan is reluctant to give up because his "salary had just increased from Rs 220 a day to Rs 400". A spokesperson from the BMC claims that sanitation workers are never asked to enter manholes and they are given helmets, gloves and boots. But Chavan and his fellow protesters at Azad Maidan say they were given no safety gear. They insist that supervisors force them to enter manholes at least once or twice a month.