“It all happened within a minute,” said 32-year-old Sevak Kumar, who saw his younger brother Prashant (26) go into a dark manhole of a septic tank to save the two others who had gone in before him.
They were part of a group of around 10 men who had agreed to clean the septic tank inside the Ramkrishna Care Hospital in Chhattisgarh’s capital city of Raipur for a fee of Rs 7,000 last Tuesday. However, none of the three came out of the manhole alive.
The deceased, Prashant Kumar, Govind Sendre (35) and Anmol Machkhand (32), were contractual sweepers with the municipality.
On the day of the incident, brothers Prashant, Satyam (30) and Sevak were part of a group of around 10 men who took up the job of cleaning the septic tank, which police said was nearly 20 feet deep, 15 feet in length and 10 feet wide. It was filled with three feet of semi-solid waste.
The Kumar brothers were originally from Odisha, and part of a family of seven siblings. After the death of their father, who was a sweeper, their mother moved with her seven children to Raipur, where they live in the BSUP colony in the Bhatagaon area. Sevak, Prashant and Satyam never went to school and are contractual sweepers for the Raipur Municipal Corporation. Each of them earns Rs 7,500 a month through their contractor.
“Apart from the Rs 7,500, our contractor transfers around Rs 1,000-1,500 in our Provident Fund account. We work from 6 am to 2 pm [for the municipality], and then we look for work on our own. There are rare days when we earn Rs 400 to Rs 500, and there are also days when we have no work and days when we earn Rs 150-200,” said Sevak.
When their contractor offered them the job of cleaning the septic tank at the hospital, it seemed a quick way to make the sort of money that would otherwise take them days to make, and the brothers agreed to take the risk that some others had denied.
Story continues below this ad
“We had cleaned septic tanks before, but none were more than 10 feet deep,” said Sevak.
On the day, it was one of their coworkers, Govind Sendre, who went in first through the manhole, followed by Anmol Machkhand. “Govind got down the ladder, but the tank had highly toxic fumes, and he fell off. Anmol went in, but he fell off, too. Then my brother went in, and he fell off as well. It all happened in a minute,” said Sevak.
The others realised that going in after them would be too dangerous. Sevak said, “The rest of us tightly held each other, crying and stopping ourselves from jumping in.”
‘He didn’t inform anyone’
Prashant Kumar was unmarried, but Anmol Machkhand is survived by his wife and four-month-old son. Also, unlike Prashant, Anmol had no experience cleaning septic tanks, but he had recently become unemployed and was desperate to find ways of earning wages.
Story continues below this ad
Anmol’s 25-year-old wife, Anupama, said, “We got married in 2022 and have a four-month-old son. Anmol had taken loans of around Rs 70,000 from four banks. He worked as a sweeper in the Governor’s house for years and then in the Municipality, but had recently become unemployed. He did not inform anyone [about the job that cost him his life].” She expressed her anger that the workers were not given proper equipment.
Shubham (32), a graduate who works for a private company, is Anmol’s elder brother. “My brother dropped out of school. In today’s world, we are forced to do whatever job we get. He was helpless,” said Shubham.
Govind Sendre, the first to go into the manhole, was a resident of the Sweepers’ Colony near Simran city. Govind was the sole breadwinner of his family, comprising his wife and two daughters aged 14 and nine.
“He was always in search of work. He earned around Rs 7,000 per month. You tell me, can you run the house and save up for the children’s future with that kind of money?” asked Govind’s relative, Nagesh Soni.
Story continues below this ad
Passing the buck
All three men who died were from Scheduled Caste communities.
Their contractor, Kishan Soni, and the management of the hospital were booked by police under BNS section 106 (1) (causing death due to negligence) and sections 8 (punishment for employing anyone for manual scavenging) and 9 (punishment for employing anyone for hazardous cleaning of a septic tank) of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act.
A senior member of the hospital management, on condition of anonymity, said, “On February 22, we had paid Rs 6,000 to the Municipal Corporation, asking them to clean the septic tank. We clean it once every 18 months. It was stinking. But the municipality said they can only suck out liquid waste. In the past, too, they removed only liquid, and a lot of semi-solid waste had accumulated. So, we outsourced the work to a private contractor. It is a failure of the system. We were not aware that manual scavenging is completely banned. There should be more awareness.”
Zonal Municipal Commissioner Hitendra Yadav told The Indian Express, “It is true we received a payment of Rs 6,000 from the hospital for cleaning the septic tank in five sessions. But our machine could not suck the solid waste. So, we asked them to pour water to loosen the waste so we could use our machines to suck it out in liquid form. But they asked for their money back, and we did not hear from them thereafter.”
