Two Days Training Programme on Health and Safety of De-Sludging Operators in Ghaziabad

Date: February 24 - 25, 2022

Safety of sanitation workers remains an often-ignored aspect in Faecal Sludge Management. Ensuring safety and well-being of sanitation workers, through elimination of hazardous entry for septic tank cleaning through mechanization of cleaning operations, provision of protective gear/ PPE kits to sanitation workers, etc is one of the most important factors mentioned in SBU-2.

Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi in collaboration with Water Sanitation and Hygiene Institute (WASH Institute) organised a two days onsite training programme in Ghaziabad to equip them with necessary knowledge on health and safety.
A total 55+ desludgers and sanitary inspectors from Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam and from CSE focus ULB's Chunar and Bijnor participated in this training programme. 8 desludgers from Bijnor, 4 from Chunar and rest from Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam attended this training programme.
Inaugurated by GM, Jalkal and other associates, the day 1 started with a short introduction about the training programme and CSE by CSE team. This was followed by an oath taking ceremony and interesting sessions on introduction to desludging operations, emptying of septic tanks/pits by DrSmita Singh, CEO Kam Foundation and first aid – basics and demonstration by Mr. Rahman from Institute of Health and safety.

Day two started with a recap exercise, followed by live demonstration of desludging to educate participants about health and safety related aspects during desludging operations. How to put on and off the PPE kits was an interesting session delivered by Mr Rahman by doing live demonstration. DrSmita also summarized about the various government policies and programmes beneficial for the desludging operators. The day ended with the feedback and discussion.
Overall training was a huge success in view of desludgers engagement, presence throughout the sessions and their feedback. 90% desludgers never had any such exposure previously.