Following a meeting with the director general of the penitentiary center Ayut Sinthoppan, Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt, said the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) will begin hiring prisoners to clean the capital’s sewage drainage system on July 1st.
Bangkok has about 6,500 km of main canals, of which 2,000 km are the responsibility of the drainage and sewerage department. The remaining 4,500 km of smaller canals are the responsibility of each of the 50 districts.
With a budget of 15 million baht, 100 km of the drainage system will have to be cleaned first, said the Bangkok governor, who admitted that the cost is a little higher than that proposed by the private sector, but that the quality of the work should be better. The newly elected governor wants 500 km of canals cleaned in four months.
The cooperation between the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and the Department of Corrections was initiated by Justice Minister Somsak Thepsuthin, who said that prisoners could help with this type of work, allowing them to earn some money while contributing to society.
He added that the prisoners should be treated as ordinary citizens, in terms of salary and welfare, and that they should participate voluntarily. Ayut Sinthoppan said that all the prisoners who will work on cleaning the canals will be selected because of their exemplary behavior, adding that each of them will receive 70 percent of their salary for the work done after they finish their prison sentence.
While the cleaning of the canals is underway, the governor said he would like residents to look at what is inside the sewage system because in some areas there is a large amount of grease. This indicates that grease traps have not been installed in some areas.
He pleaded with households to install grease traps in their kitchens.