'It's a national shame'

The National Safai Karmachari Commission was set up to rehabilitate the workers deployed into manual scavenging. The body had spent crores of rupees in the past two decades, but has not yet succeeded in its mission, rued Krishnamurthy.

He spoke with the safai karmacharis on the premises of the Town Municipal Corporation in KGF on Saturday.

‘Work still remains’

He added that officers can’t think their task is over once they have distributed grants released for rehabilitation of the safai karmacharis.

These workers, who come from the lowest strata of society do menial jobs and are usually under the influences of bad  habits. The local administration needs to initiate measures to reform and bring them into the mainstream, he said.

‘Supply jetting machines’

Krishnamurthy said: “The district administration should supply jetting machines to all the local administrations to clean the septic tanks. The public should also play a role by alerting the police if they spotted anyone was forced into manual scavenging.”

He directed KGF SP Debajyothi Ray and Kolar SP Dr Thyagarajan to instruct all police stations to register complaints from informants without delay.

“The Commission has also found that grants released for rehabilitation were misappropriated in several cases and an inquiry into the issue will be taken up within a month. A report on the inquiry will be submitted to the Union government,” he said.