india

Updated: Sep 11, 2019 00:51 IST

Four labourers died on Tuesday morning while carrying out repair work on a septic tank in Madhuban village under Minapur police station.

Police said the septic tank caved in when the labourers, reportedly manual scavengers, were removing the wooden chamber inside one Balram Sahni’s house. Though local residents rushed and tried their best to pull out the labourers from the pit, they could not save their lives.

All the four deceased, identified as Veer Kunwar Sahni, Dharmendra Sahni, Kaushal Sahni and Madhu Sahni, died due to asphyxiation in the muck. They hailed Madhuban village.

District magistrate Alok Ranjan Ghosh said he had directed the circle officer of Minapur block to visit the bereaved families and immediately hand over compensation to the next of kin of the deceased.

The problem of manual scavenging continues in Bihar, which had more than 3620 manual scavengers. East Champaran district alone has over 2400 of them. Bihar, despite performing fairly well in its drive to eliminate the scourge, hasn’t been able achieve the goal yet.

Last year, the ministry of social justice and empowerment had come up with ‘Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers’, under which identified manual scavengers and their dependents are provided several rehabilitation benefits like one-time cash assistance of Rs 40,000, loans up to Rs15 lakh at concessional rate of interest and skill development training up to two years with stipend of Rs 3,000 per month.