Swachh Survekshan: Chandigarh has best safety standards for safai workers, gets award

Shubhadeep Choudhury

New Delhi, January 11

Chandigarh was on Thursday awarded the Best Safaimitra Surakshit Award at the Swachh Survekshan Award ceremony held here today. President Droupadi Murmu gave the award to Mayor Anup Gupta at a function organised at Bharat Mandapa by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

The city was ranked 11th in the overall cleanliness category among all cities in India having more than one lakh population. The Best Safaimitra Surakshit Award was launched by the ministry to ensure safety and dignity of urban sanitation workers.

Chandigarh Home Secretary Nitin Kumar Yadav, Commissioner of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation Anindita Mitra and MC Chief Engineer NP Sharma were also present at the award ceremony.

Mitra said the city had been able to completely eliminate manual cleaning of sewers. “Besides being undignified, workers who enter sewers for manual cleaning face the risk of losing their lives by inhaling poisonous gases. In Chandigarh, sewers are cleaned entirely by machines,” Mitra said, while talking to The Tribune.

To enhance the well-being and working conditions of sanitation workers, the city MC has set up booths where workers can relax during breaks. The booth offers shelter from extreme weather conditions, shielding the workers from harsh sunlight during summer and biting cold in winter. While the booths have been so far been set up in Dhanas and Sarangpur only, there is a plan to build more such facilities in the city.

Mitra said the MC had also brought under insurance cover sanitation workers of all categories, including those on contract and deployed by private contractors. Under this scheme, the next of kin of any worker get Rs 2.5 lakh each in case of natural death of the insured worker. In case of accidental death, the amount goes up to Rs 40 lakh.

Mitra said the next of kin of 47 workers had been given Rs 2.5 lakh relief each so far. Two workers died in accidents after the introduction of the scheme. The kin of one of them were given Rs 40 lakh, while the second case was in process. The bank having the salary accounts of MC employees paid the premium of the insurance scheme, she said. On Chandigarh’s 11th rank in overall cleanliness, Mitra said it had secured 56th place in 2021 and 12th in 2023.