Four workers of Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) were collecting garbage from a dustbin into a three-wheeled van in Lal Dighi area on July 30. They did not have any safety gears on them. Liquid waste was rolling down their bare arms to their elbows.
That is how some 2,000 shebaks (conservancy workers) are working to keep Chittagong city clean and waste-free, running the risks of serious diseases due to a lack of safety precautions.
Nazrul Islam (not his real name), one of the four workers, said he knew collecting trash without precautions was risky for health but he was helpless.
“We requested the authorities to provide safety gears including gloves, masks, mackintosh, caps and gumboots but they did not heed our request,” he said.
Shafiqul Mannan Siddique, chief conservancy officer of the CCC, denied the allegation. “We have provided gloves and gumboots to the workers but they do not wear those,” he said.
The CCC official, however, could not say how many workers had been provided with the safety equipment. “We have provided safety equipment to many workers and will provide those to the rest immediately,” he said.
The claim, however, was contradicted by Morshedul Alam Chowdhury, general secretary of Chattagram City Corporation Shramik Karmachari League. He said the conservancy workers were not provided with any safety equipment although they were vulnerable to health hazards.
According to Dr Sayeed Mahmud, a teacher at Chittagong Medical College, the conservancy workers who are working without safety gears run the risks of contacting skin and respiratory diseases.
Another problem which doubles the misery of the shebaks is that they are not permanent staff of the CCC. If a worker fails to attend his workplace any day due to illness or other emergencies, he will not get a farthing from the office for treatment.
“We work on a daily basis with a daily wage of Tk 200. Many of us have been working for 18-19 years. Still we are not enrolled as permanent workers,” said Nazrul.
“Even if any worker dies in an accident at workplace, her/his family will not get any compensation,” he told The Daily Star.
According to the CCC officials, 1,950 shebaks work in three sections–cleaning drains, sweeping roads and collecting garbage from dustbins. Of those, 400 are women who are engaged mainly in sweeping roads.
Workers’ leader Morshedul said the shebaks worked on a “no work, no pay” basis. Many workers had been injured in accidents on different occasions earlier, but did not get any compensation from the CCC, he said.
“We demanded several times that the authorities regularise the job of the workers. They never heeded our demand.”
Preferring anonymity, a senior shebak said he had been working for 19 years under three mayors, including the present one. “Not one of them tried to understand our misery,” he added.
Mayor Manjur Alam told The Daily Star that as per the CCC’s present organogram, there was no scope for making the job of conservancy workers permanent. An initiative to change the organogram has been taken, and relevant papers have already been sent to the ministry, he said.
The mayor also said the CCC authorities had a plan to ensure the safety of all conservancy workers. Many of them have already been provided with gloves and gumboots, and procurement of safety gears for the rest is underway, he added.
-With The Daily Star input
