Call To End Manual Scavenging
Activists of the Adi Thamizhar Peravai staging a protest in front of the Coimbatore Corporation office on Wednesday against manual scavenging. Members of the Adi Thamizhar Peravai entered the Coimbatore Corporation office at Town Hall on Wednesday to picket the civic body as part of a State-wide protest to demand an end to manual scavenging. The members were removed by the police when they raised slogans and demanded the use of machines to remove blocks in sewers.
“We attempted picketing in 21 districts to point out that local bodies were still using their sanitary workers to manually remove blocks in underground sewers. This went against the High Court order banning the use of sanitary workers,” district secretary of the Peravai S.P. Kathiravan said. When pointed out that the Coimbatore Corporation had an equipment to remove the blocks and planned to buy three more, Mr. Kathiresan said that even the available one was not being used fully.
State president of the Peravai R. Adhiyaman has demanded that mechanised removal of blocks must be fully in place across the State in three months, Mr. Kathiravan said. Sanitary workers complained of diseases they contracted because of getting into a drainage filled with human waste.
