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Manual scavenging must

become thing of the past

anu V, 25, died of asphyxia- scavenger. But the task force conducting
tion on March 2 while clean- the survey — which comprised members
The LasT ing a sewage pit in a school from the ministries of social justice, rural
development, drinking water and sanita-
in Begur, Bengaluru. The
Word M owner of the school has been tion, and housing and urban affairs and
the National Safai Karamchari Finance and
arrested. But it won’t bring back Manu or
Abdul WAsey people like him, who lose their lives to the Development Corporation — found that
stinking legacy of suffocation and stigma. there were 1,221 manual scavengers in
Every year, hundreds of manual scavengers Bihar. Haryana had 846 such workers and
die asphyxiated by poisonous gases across 288 people in Telangana were engaged in
the country despite legislations being in this dehumanising practice.
place that prohibit involvement of human The latest official statistics suggests that
beings in such practices. more than 45,000 people have been identi-
Since 1993, when the Parliament had fied by various states as manual scavengers.
passed a law outlawing the employment Of them, over 37 per cent are yet to receive
and use of manual scavengers, scant little the one-time cash assistance they are enti-
has been done to secure their most essen- tled to under the government’s rehabilita-
tial rights. The unwillingness to enforce the tion scheme that was launched in June 2018.
ban and the lack of alternatives
provided by the government Manual scavenging
to ensure that humans are not
engaged in cleaning sewers was outlawed 25
make this illegal and inhumane
practice prosper. years ago, yet about
Many times, concerned au- 1,82,505 families
thorities are indirectly involved
in it. Municipal corporations and still carry out this
local bodies very often outsource dehumanising work
the sewer cleaning tasks to pri-
vate contractors, who do not
maintain proper rolls of work- In the 2019-20 Interim Budget, the Modi
ers. In case after case of sanita- government allotted just 9 crore for the
tion workers being asphyxiated National Commission for Safai Karam-
to death while working toxic charis. In 2018-19, only 5.92 crore was
sludge pools in different parts of set aside for the National Commission for
the country, these contractors simply deny Safai Karamcharis and in 2017-18, the figure
any association with the deceased. was 4.5 crore. As per the socio-economic
Amid all this, the introduction of a fleet and caste census of 2011, a total of 182,505
of 200 machine-equipped trucks to deal households are still dependent on manual
with scavenging by the Delhi government scavenging across the country.
is a step in the right direction. It may not The governments need to take action
bring the scourge of manual scavenging to ensure that the dehumanising practice
in the capital to an immediate end. But the of manual scavenging stops at the earliest.
technology deployment for cleaning pur- Washing the feet of safai karamcharis is
poses may put pressure on other states to fine but only concrete measures and their
take measures to curb this practice. proper implementation will lift the manual
During a survey last year by the Centre, scavengers out of their woes.
the governments of Haryana, Bihar and Tel-
angana did not report even a single manual letters@tehelka.com

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