Telangana Tunnel Collapse: ‘Criminal Neglect’ on Part of Govt, Contractor, Says CITU

New Delhi: As eight migrant workers are still trapped in a tunnel collapse that took place on Saturday in Nagarkurnool district of Telangana, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has urged the state government to step up rescue efforts on a war-footing and pay compensation to the families the migrant workers

In a statement, CITU also demanded that the government black-list the contractor for criminal neglect by not ensuring workplace safety.

“The incidents of water filling along with mud and silt in the tunnel work is not an unknown thing, it is usually anticipated and preventive steps are normally undertaken well in advance. This incident of Srisailam left bank canal (SLBC) tunnel being filled with water, mud and silt near Domalapet village of Amrabad Mandalam, that too within 30 minutes of the workers entering into tunnel, shows the lack of proper tunnel engineering expertise, with the contractor undertaking the work and supervision on the part of Telangana Govt’s Irrigation and public works department,” said the statement.

CITU said it was “criminal neglect on the part of both the contractor and the Govt department”, which has put the lives of the migrant workers at stake and their families in distress.

The trade union said that as the workers involved in such hazardous work were all inter-state migrants, ensuring the workplace safety was the responsibility of the state labour department and the designated authorities concerned under the Inter State Migrant Workers Act 1979 (ISMWA).

“The incident shows the utter neglect on the part of the state labour department and labour ministry as such. Hence the State Govt has to conduct an enquiry as to whether the workers were registered under the ISMWA, and the Agent who brought the workers and supplied them to the contractor along with the contractor/sub-contractor involved, if any, who have to be booked for non-compliance or non-adherence of the provisions of the statute,” it said.

In the statement, CITU also sought answers from the Union Labour Ministry as to whether the workers concerned were covered under the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Employees State Insurance (ESI) and ensure statutory relief as per the Acts.

“Given these sort of accidents recurring in most of the tunnel works in which the migrants workers are involved, the repeal of ISMWA and Contract labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act 1970 subsuming them in diluted form in the labour codes will only allow the contractors and employers go scot free playing with the lives of the workers”, said CITU, reiterating its demand to repeal the labour codes and ensure effective implementation of the Inter State Migrant Workers Act and Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act.

As per reports, the trapped migrant workers are Manoj Kumar and Sri Niwas from Uttar Pradesh, Sunny Singh (J&K), Gurpreet Singh (Punjab) and Sandeep Sahu, Jegta Xess, Santosh Sahu and Anuj Sahu, all from Jharkhand.