Labourers protest hazardous working conditions at Dikchu HEP

WORKERS ABANDON WORK, PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION COMMITTEE CONVINCES THEM TO RETURN

WANGCHUK BHUTIA
MANGAN, 07 June: The accompanying picture of a labourer crossing the Dikchu khola to reach the tail race tunnel worksite on the far bank illustrates the hydel commitment to worker safety. This treacherous river crossing has to be made swinging from a flimsy wrought-iron contraption which does not even have a door which closes properly. A 12 mm iron wire is all that keeps the workers away from the ferocious rapid below and there does not appear to be any arrangement for a security harness as protection against a mishap. This has been how work has progressed here since the makeshift bridge across the khola was washed away on 01 May earlier last month.
This is the situation at the power-house site of the 96MW Dikchu Hydel Power Project. Frustrated with the management’s disinterest in worker safety, labourers engaged at the site by Drillcon Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd., a subsidiary of Sneha Kinetic Power Project [the project developer], abandoned work today.
Interestingly, the Ward Panchayat BB Gurung and members of the Project Implementation Committee arrived at the spot and resolved the matter, convincing the workers to “bear with the company till a new bailey bridge was constructed”.

Meanwhile, the ward panchayat urged the company to replace the existing overhead rope with a new and stronger rope. The committee members and the ward panchayat also asked the company to complete the construction of a bailey bridge by the 15th of this month.
Work at this treacherously accessed work site is set to resume from Wednesday. 
Before this happened, frustrated workers had quit work today.
“We are forced to cross the river in an iron structure not fit to be called a ropeway, supported by an old and used rope of just 12mm thickness which can give way anytime. The river below is swarming in all its ferocity,” Chandra Bahadur Pradhan, a worker at the project site had pointed out while speaking to NOW!
Moreover, the company does not provide a waiting/rain shed on the far bank has made no provisions for a toilet or supply of safe drinking water there. Given this lackadaisical attitude, it is no surprise that there is no provision for emergency medical facilities there either. 
The workers also complained of inexcusably low remunerations, stating that against a regular work schedule of 12 hours, they are paid wages only for 8 hours of work.