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.

One of them is 21-year-old Umesh Bandge who works as a garbage collector. “My father was also working in the garbage collection wing of PMC and died due to TB in 2004 when he was only 45. He faced lot of medical problems and every day was a struggle for us. Neither was my father given any protective equipment then nor am I getting anything now,” he says. For the year 2004, in which his father died, no data on death on duty has been collated yet.

“The PMC has provided financial assistance to kin of all the 107 Class IV employees who died of various ailments due to working in unhygienic conditions in 2006-07,” said Human Resources incharge and PMC labour officer Nandkumar Jagtap.

But that is of little comfort to those like Bandge. Admits Municipal Commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi: “The PMC cannot be forgiven if it fails to provide required safety equipment to the conservancy staff as not one death should take place due to lack of protective equipment. I am personally looking into it and the PMC has decided to provide gloves, masks, gumboots to the conservancy staff so that they don’t get in physical contact of the waste as it is hazardous to their health.”

Medical experts say that while no cause-effect relationship can be established between the death of workers and their work, there is no escaping the fact that inequipped with safety equipment they are exposed to adverse conditions. Says chief of the Maharashtra chapter of the Indian Medical Association Devendra Shirole: “Death at 45 cannot be solely linked to working conditions but in the case of conservancy staff, they come into contact with disease-causing micro-organisms. Safety measures are critical and in their absence, they are prone to diseases.”

But that’s just one aspect. Officials admit the problem is deeper. “We do carry out regular medical check-ups but staff are reluctant to participate as they fear being declared unfit, leading to loss of their job. It’s true they work in unhygienic conditions. They are also prone to drug and alcohol addiction and a new trend is HIV infection,” said Chief of PMC Health Department Pramod Dhaigude.