Editorial: End menace of manual scavenging

Centre's renewed push to end this inhuman form of work needs to focus on why earlier projects were not successful.

Hyderabad: Manual scavenging, one of the most abominable realities of India, is a blot on our collective conscience that refuses to disappear despite legislative and judicial efforts. Though this inhuman form of sanitation work was banned a decade ago, it still persists across the country leading to a large number of deaths of workers engaged in sewer line repair and cleaning without critical safety measures. In addition to the social stigma and isolation, they are also exposed to serious health hazards. Against this backdrop, the announcement, made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her 2023-24 union Budget, to enable all cities and towns to switch to 100% mechanical de-sludging of sewers and septic tanks is a welcome move. The proposed transition is a significant step towards ending the dehumanising and unsafe practice of manual scavenging. In December last year, the Lok Sabha was informed that as many as 400 people had died while undertaking the hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks since 2017. That is only the official figure, representing the tip of the iceberg. Of the estimated 1.2 million manual scavengers in India, about 95% are women. Even the National Human Rights Commission, in a statement in January 2021, admitted that the claims made by many States that they have zero manual scavengers and zero insanitary latrines are far from the truth. Manual scavenging is a grave social socio-legal problem which violates basic human dignity. It also represents some of the worst surviving forms of both caste discrimination and dehumanising forms of work.

Even though multiple government schemes have been implemented and various anti-scavenging legislations exist, the practice continues. Intervention by the legislature and judiciary has not seen much success in eliminating the problem. There are a lot of discrepancies in the data on manual scavengers in the country. The numbers provided by independent organisations like the Safai Karmachari Andolan point towards the underestimation of the figures by the government. The Supreme Court, which mandated a compensation of Rs 10 lakh by the State government to the family of any person who dies while engaging in scavenging work, voiced outrage that no place in the world sends people to ‘gas chambers to die’. Still, daily wagers performing the precarious task without technological tools or basic protective gear is the norm and not an exception. The implementation of the mechanisation plans, unveiled by the Centre in the past, has been tardy. Besides ensuring adequate funding and incentivising the switchover, the renewed push needs to focus on why the earlier projects did not prove to be successful. Inefficient sewage management system is responsible for manual scavenging being still in practice. Most municipalities in the country do not have the latest machines for cleaning the sewage systems and thus sewage workers are required to enter the underground sewerage lines through manholes.

---