MAPUSA
A youth from Belagavi but residing in Lakshminagar-Mapusa died of suffocation after he went inside the septic tank of a house at Ektanagar-Mapusa on Thursday midnight.
This comes less than three months after the Supreme Court had taken a grim view of incidents of sewer deaths in the country and had asked the Centre and State governments to completely eradicate manual scavenging across the country.
The incident at Ektanagar took place after Yamanappa Madar (24) had taken the contract to empty the septic tank of a house in Ektanagar. With the help of three workers, he was lowered into the tank.
After some time, Yamanappa fainted and fell down. Another worker stepped in to pull him out but he came up immediately as he was short of breath.
The Mapusa fire station was alerted and firefighters noticed that the mouth of the septic tank was very narrow and there was noxious gas. Firefighters managed to pull out Yamanappa and he was shifted to the Mapusa District Hospital, but was declared dead on arrival.
Mapusa PSI Babalo Parab and a team later conducted the panchnama and sent the body for a post-mortem. Police are conducting further investigations.
In October 2023, the Supreme Court had said government authorities would have to pay Rs 30 lakh as compensation to the kin of those who die while cleaning sewers, while those who suffer permanent disabilities while cleaning sewers will be paid Rs 20 lakh as minimum compensation.
"The Union and the State governments must ensure that manual scavenging is completely eradicated," stated a bench comprising Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Aravind Kumar.
