Recently two workers in the Patna Municipal Corporation, Jitendra Paswan and Deepak Choudhury, were suffocated to death while they had gone inside a manhole to clean it. It is well known that the Municipal Corporation does not provide adequate safety equipment to sanitation workers for cleaning inside manholes, and all safety regulations are blatantly flouted. The Party believes that these deaths are the result of negligence of safety rules by Municipal Corporation officers; thus, they are a kind of murder. The CPI (ML) Patna City committee gheraoed the Patna Municipal Corporation office situated at Maurya Lok on 6 May 2017. The gherao expressed anger at the death of the two sanitation workers and submitted the following demands to the Patna Municipal Corporation Commissioner:
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1. Rs 10 lakh compensation to the families of both the dead victims and government employment to one member from each family.
2. Apart from the above compensation, the family members should get the amount due under the Bihar Unorganized Workers’ Social Security Scheme.
3. Immediate arrangements should be made for implementation of all safety methods for all daily sanitation workers as well as seasonal sanitation workers.
4. All Patna Municipal Corporation workers should be linked to EPF and given the benefits of ESI.
5. A high level enquiry into the death of the sanitation workers and punishment for the guilty officials.
The protest was led by AICCTU State Secretary Com. Ranvijay, CPI (ML) Patna City Secretary Com. Abhyuday, RYA State Secretary Com. Naveen, City Committee members comrades Murtaza Ali, Anuradha, Vibha Gupta and others.
