165 manhole deaths in Gujarat, 62 in Ahmedabad; govt "refusing" to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation: Widows

Hansaben and Gitaben

By A Representative
Gitaben's husband, belonging to India's most marginalised Dalit community, Valmikis, died while cleaning up a gutter in Ahmedabad in 2006. Though she was given compensation of Rs 2 lakh and a job by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), she has still not received the Rs 10 lakh compensation she should get on the basis of the March 27, 2014 Supreme Court order. Same is the case with Hansaben, whose husband died died in the year 2000.
The Supreme Court order requires payment of Rs 10 lakh compensation to each of the manual scavengers who died cleaning up gutters across India since 1993. However, the two widows alleged that they had "still not heard" from the state government on when will they be compensated, despite repeated representations.
The widows were participating in a public hearing of 200 marginalized women, belonging to Dalit, tribal and minority communities from across Gujarat at the Human Development and Research Centre (HDRC), St Xavier's College premises, Ahmedabad, on Tuesday.
Talking about the plight of not just these widows but also others, whose husbands have died cleaning up gitters since 1993, Parsottam Vaghela of the Manav Garima Trust told newspersons, "Between 1993 and till date as many as 165 persons have died due to asphyxiation in gutters. However, so far, only 11 widows have received the Rs 10 lakh compensation."
"Ironically", he continued, "Even the compensation to the 11 widows is not being paid in in the full. Earlier, they had received an amount of Rs 1.5 to 3 lakh as compensation when their husbands died. This amount was cut from the Rs 10 lakh, which has to be paid as compensation".
"Worse", he told Counterview, "The interest for the three year period after the Supreme Court order has not been paid, which is a clear violation of the apex court order", adding, "We hope, with polls round the corner, the government would act, taking Election Commission permission."
Of the 165 manhole workers who have died, 62 belong to Ahmedabad alone. Ironically, for 10 of them, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has sought clarification from the state authorities whether their widows should be paid any compensation, as their kin had been given “mercy” jobs.
"In order to avoid giving any compensation various other explanations are being offered", said Vaghela. "Like, the Dahegam municipality, about 20 km from the state capital, Gandhinagar, says that since the two workers who died were contract workers, it is not the job of the government authorities to give any compensation".
" Then", he said, "Mansa municipal authorities say that since those the two persons who had died were working under the water supply department, it is not their job to give compensation. In Jamnagar, four boys died in manhole after they were asked to enter into the manhole in order to save the person, who had already entered in earlier, fainted in the gutter."
"Five years after the tragedy, the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation has said that while the person who died first would be given compensation, the other four who died while saving him would not be compensated. Queries are being raised for each of 165 cases on one pretext or the other in order to flout the Supreme Court order", he added.
During the public hearing, Jassuben, an illiterate Dalit woman, said, her son was killed seven years ago in Ahmedabad's Vatva area, yet no FIR was filed. Even the post mortem was not performed on his body.
And Manjulaben, another Dalit woman, pointed towards how she was suspended from the job of cook at the midday meal kitchen in Junagadh's Ghantiya village "because the principal of the school and the village elders did not want food to be served food by an untouchable."

Comments

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

India’s green energy push faces talent crunch amidst record growth at 16% CAGR

By Jag Jivan* A new study by a top consulting firm has found that India’s cleantech sector is entering a decisive growth phase, with strong policy backing, record capacity additions and surging investor interest, but facing mounting pressure on talent supply and rising compensation costs .

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Beyond sattvik: Purity, caste and the politics of the Indian kitchen

By Rajiv Shah A few week ago, I was forwarded an article that appeared in the British weekly The Economist . Titled “Caste and cuisine: From honeycomb curry to blood fry: India’s ‘untouchable’ cooking”, it took me back to what I had blogged about what was called a “ sattvik food festival”, an annual event organised by former Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad professor Anil Gupta.

Search This Blog