NGO releases videos showing workers entering into gutter in Ahmedabad without safety equipment

By A Representative
A Gujarat-based grassroots organization, Manav Garima Trust (MGT), has taken strong exception to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) failing to implement the law prohibiting manual scavenging, saying, AMC has continued to use workers to clean up underground gutters without providing any safety equipment.
Releasing two videos and several photographs taken between January and April 2019, MGT director Parsottam Vaghela said, this is a mockery of Swacch Bharat Mission and the Supreme Court judgment of 2014, adding, these workers, employed by contractors hired by AMC, are sought to forced descend into gutter lines in the middle of night, though the law prohibits this after 6 pm.

One of the videos shows a worker entering into a sewerage line at 1.00 am in Bapunagar in February (on the top), and another one is of Vejalpur (the second one) taken a fortnight ago this month. Vaghela says, despite the death of two gutter workers in Bawla in Ahmedabad district, AMC has not woken up, adding, AMC authorities cannot wash their hands of by saying that contractors and not they are responsible for this state of affairs.

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