This is a city emerging as one of the country’s next top metros fuelled by the knowledge economy and the construction boom but keeping it clean is turning out to be dirty and very dangerous. Alarm bells are ringing in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) after a startling official revelation: As many as 227 Class IV PMC employees, with an average age of 45 years, have died in the last 30 months.

They were all working as “conservancy staff” — collecting and disposing garbage, sweeping roads, cleaning underground sewage lines and unclogging manholes.

Records obtained by The Indian Express reveal that according to the PMC’s Employment Welfare Register, 40 such employees have died in the first six months of 2007-08 itself; 107 in 2006-07 and 80 in 2005-06. Incidentally, 2005-06 is the first year for which the PMC tabulated such data.

The break-up by cause of death has been done only for 2006-07 but the trend is clear. While the leading cause is officially labelled in the PMC logbooks as “sickness” without any details, the deaths have also been attributed to tuberculosis, jaundice, heart disease and cancer.

Of the 107 who died in 2006-07, 81 were men and 26 women.

The age of the victims is a stark reminder of the fact that their deaths were early: 32 were in the 30-40 year category, 38 in the 40-50 year bracket, 37 above 50 years.

Of course, 227 is a small slice of the current 6826 employees in the PMC’s conservancy staff but officials admit that the problem could be much more serious. In fact, the figures came to light only when relatives of the dead filed to claim the Rs 15,000-dole under the employment welfare scheme and a job for a family member.

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