Puri expresses concern over deaths during cleaning of sewers

Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri today expressed "serious concern" over incidents of deaths of manual scavengers while they were cleaning sewers in the city.
The minister while addressing a gathering at an event organised under the 'Swacchata Hi Sewa' campaign by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) at the India Gate, also stressed on the need for mechanised cleaning of sewers.
Puri said his concern over "unsafe and manual cleaning of sewers" was shared by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who met him on Tuesday this week, according to a statement released by the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry.

The ministry said, he has expressed "serious concern over death of sanitation workers while manually cleaning clogged sewers in the national capital".
He added that "a good portion of the Rs 300 cr sanctioned by his ministry for the three municipal corporations of Delhi would be spent on procuring mechanised sewer cleaners".
Puri said the national capital of Delhi is among the major global cities of the world and it needs to be clean to be worthy of that status.

The minister appealed to the citizens of Delhi and other agencies like hotels, to not dump garbage into sewers to prevent their clogging.

"We should give up the 'we-litter-and-others-would-clean' attitude," the minister said and called for ensuring segregation of waste at the source on a war-footing in the national capital.
On August 20, a 45-year-old sanitation worker had died and three others were taken ill, allegedly while cleaning a sewer at the city government-run Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital in central Delhi.
In three separate incidents over a month leading to it, nine people had died in similar circumstances.
The deaths had prompted authorities in Delhi to go for fully mechanised cleaning of sewers in future. They had also made it clear that any violation of it would attract a punishment of up to life imprisonment.

Puri said the ongoing sanitation campaign, which started on September 15, has proved to be a trigger towards making the country clean.
As per reports last received, over 80 lakh citizens have participated in the campaign in the urban areas of the country. A total of over 3.50 lakh mass action campaigns have been taken up so far, he said.
Abhay Sinha, DG of the CPWD said, his organisation is adopting clean and new construction technologies to ensure a neat and tidy environment, besides focusing on energy efficient construction to reduce carbon footprint.
The CPWD has built 1,200 toilet for Mahanadi Coalfields at a cost of about Rs 20 cr, he added.