The absolute prohibition of manual entry into sewer lines is operationally impracticable in rare emergency scenarios where mechanical equipment fails due to structural collapse, debris compaction or hydraulic limitation, an engineer of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation (KWSC) told the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday.
Filing comments on a petition seeking protection of all sanitation workers and ban on manual entry of sanitary worker in sewer lines, the KWSC submitted that it had progressively adopted mechanised sewer cleaning method in order to minimise the manual entry in sewer lines.
The KWSC official submitted that the corporation was equipped with jetting machines, suction machines, combined jetting and suction unit, and rodding equipment to clean sewerage lines. He said that many sanitary workers who died due to suffocation in manholes were hired by the private contractors or local councils, on which the KWSC had no employer control.
He added that the KWSC had not violated any fundamental rights of any individual while no specific instance of actionable negligence attributed directly to the corporation had been pleaded or established. He requested the high court to dismiss the petition.
The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) also filed comments submitting that manual cleaning of sewer lines should be phased out through mechanical and automatic machines. A Sepa director called for providing safety kits to the sanitary workers.
A division bench of the high court headed by Justice Mohammad Saleem Jessar after taking the comments on record directed the unserved respondents, including the Sindh government, to file comments on the petition on the next hearing.
The petitioners, Arif Hasan and others, had submitted in the petition that the practice of manual scavenging by entry of sanitation worker inside sewage gutter persisted besides private persons were hired to clean manholes by entering into them compromising their safety and health.
They had submitted that these sanitation workers performed their jobs without any protective gears exposing them to biological, physical and chemical hazards that also resulted in deaths. They had said that several sanitation workers had lost their lives during cleaning of gutters due to inhalation of poisonous gas and other lack of safety measures.
The petitioners had said that recently three sanitation workers died during manually cleaning a gutter in the Usmanabad area. They were hired by the local union committee without providing them safety gears.
The petitioners had said the provincial government did not provide internationally recommended safety precaution for manual cleaning of sewers, expensive safety equipment and training. They said the only safety option was to prohibit the inhumane and demeaning practice of manual scavenging and cleaning by entry into sewage gutters.
They had said that a neighbouring country had also passed legislation in 2013 which prohibited any person from engaging or employing others for hazardous cleaning of a sewer or septic tank.
They had submitted that the KWSC and other sanitation authorities were responsible for maintaining gutters and sewerage drains and they should perform this job by providing safety kits to the sanitation workers.
The high court was requested to declare that the practice with regard to hazardous entry of sanitation workers in the gutters and sewerage drains without safety kits a violation of fundamental rights and direct the government to adopt policies that protected fundamental rights of all sanitation workers, including their right to work in safe conditions.
