According to estimates, there were 1.18 lakh manual scavengers in the country in 2007. The government claims rehabilitating most of them, but NGO Safai Karmachari Andolan, which had petitioned NAC, says there are still over 4,000 manual scavengers.
A tough message from Sonia Gandhi, asking the government to ensure eradication of manual scavenging, has had ministries running for cover.
Angry at its continuance so many years after independence, the Sonia-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has asked the government to coordinate with states and various departments, including the railways, to abolish the practice latest by the end of the 11th plan period. Besides, it has asked the ministry of social justice and empowerment (SJ&E) to formulate a 100% central scheme to support rehabilitation.
According to estimates, there were 1.18 lakh manual scavengers in the country in 2007. The government claims rehabilitating most of them, but NGO Safai Karmachari Andolan, which had petitioned NAC, says there are still over 4,000 manual scavengers.
NAC has recommended amendment of Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrine (prohibition) Act 1993 to make manual scavenging definitions sharper and public officials employing or failing to prevent manual scavenging accountable.
It wants the government to conduct a fresh nation-wide survey, demolish dry latrines, ensure psycho-social and livelihood rehabilitation of manual scavengers and their families in modern marketable skills and start a special programme for education of their children.
NAC has asked the government to monitor implementation of the initiatives at the highest level. In fact, NAC itself will monitor on a quarterly basis progress made in abolishing the practice.
The ministries of SJ&E, housing and urban poverty alleviation (HUPA) and urban development (UD) have gone into a huddle to work out ways to wipe out manual scavenging by 2012.
It was decided at a high-level meeting that the SJ&E ministry will begin a fresh survey of manual scavengers while UD will make action plans for states and monitor them as HUPA takes steps to amend the law.
In its note to the government, NAC has said: “It is deeply distressed to observe that despite being outlawed, the shameful practice of manual scavenging persists in India. This practice involves entrapping women, men and even children only because of the accident of their birth into humiliating vocation of gathering human excreta from individual or community dry toilets with bare hands, brooms or metal scrapers. It is intolerable that this endures, and is the worst surviving symbol of untouchability. The persistence of dry latrines violates human dignity, the law and articles 14, 17, 21 and 23 of the constitution.”
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