The Manohar Lal Khattar Government in Haryana has identified sewer personnel who lost their lives while cleaning sewer in different parts of the state since 1993 and given a compensation of Rs 1.90 crore to the families of 19 such personnel.
Besides, the government has approved an insurance scheme for the sewer personnels.
The Chief Minister on Monday presented cheques worth nearly Rs 60 lakh as compensation to the family members of such sewer personnel who died while doing their duty.
The State Government had decided to pay compensation of Rs 10 lakh each to the affected family.
“Out of compensation of Rs 1.90 crore, compensation amounting to Rs 1.30 crores has already been paid in accounts of family members of the deceased, while the cheques of balance amount of about Rs 60 lakh were disbursed by Manohar Lal,” said an official spokesman.
He said that the Chief Minister presented cheque of Rs 10 lakh as compensation to Shakuntla Devi resident of Bhiwani, cheque of Rs 7,40,467 to Hukam Chand of district Rohtak, cheque of Rs 7,42,000 to Krishna of Sonipat, cheque of Rs 7,10,683 to Anita of Jind, cheque of Rs 3,17,262 to Santosh of Sonipat among others.
Manohar Lal expressed his sympathy to the deceased family members and inquired about their family and source of livelihood.
He said that directions had been issued to the Public Health Engineering Department to identify causalities in work of sewer cleaning throughout the state since 1993 so that compensation could be given to their family members.
Additional Chief Secretary, Public Health Engineering Rajiv Arora informed that Chief Minister has approved an insurance scheme for the sewer personnels and the same has been sent for the approval of Finance Department.
Apart from this, it has also been decided that the sewer personnels would also be covered under different schemes of Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes Department, he said.
Arora informed that the Department has formulated and issued strict guidelines to the field functionaries that only trained persons be allowed to enter into sewer with all precautions and safety measures only in unavoidable circumstances.
To train, all the regular, temporary and contractual staff, a special campaign through agencies having specialization in this field has been launched by the Department. Till date, 631 sewer personnel have been trained under 12 circles of Public Health Engineering Department, he added.\
Among those present on this occasion included Director General, Information, Public Relations and Languages Sameer Pal Srow and Rajiv Jain, media advisor to Chief Minister.