Manual scavenging: Denials do not help

Govt’s declaration that manual scavenging has ceased to exist is not true.

There is no credible evidence to support the government’s claim that the problem of manual scavenging has been eliminated in the country. The Central Monitoring Committee (CMC) of the Social Justice Ministry made the announcement last week that all unsanitary latrines had been made sanitary under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan and that manual scavenging does not exist in the country now. The announcement was made at a meeting chaired by Social Justice Minister Veerendra Kumar to review the implementation of the law banning manual scavenging. The announcement carried its own contradiction because only 520 of the total 766 districts have declared themselves free of manual scavenging. The minister said that “whatever information has been received…has said manual scavenging does not take place anymore.” This cannot be accepted as correct in the absence of reports from the entire country. About 35 per cent of the districts have not reported on the matter.

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The government has made similar claims in the past also. According to official figures, in 2022, there were about 58,000 manual scavengers and 330 of them had died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks between 2017 and 2021. There are still reports of the persistence of the practice and accidents happening due to this. The minister said that those who have been identified as manual scavengers have been rehabilitated and given skills training. The scheme for rehabilitation has now been merged with the NAMASTE (National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem) scheme for complete mechanisation of sewers. The government differentiates manual scavenging from hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks and claims that since all manual scavengers have been identified, the practice does not exist in the country. It attributes all deaths to hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks. The 330 deaths between 2017 and 2021 are described as accidents. This amounts to giving a different name to manual scavenging and declaring that it has been eliminated. Daily workers who die during manual scavenging are excluded from the tally. The construction of toilets under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan also does not mean the end of scavenging because many toilets lack water and sewage facilities, forcing many to go back to the old ways.

The guidelines for the NAMASTE scheme have not been finalised. The scheme requires over 4,800 urban local bodies to identify and profile all septic tank and sewer workers and to provide them occupational training, safety equipment and insurance facilities. Only on successful implementation of the scheme all over the country can manual scavenging be declared a thing of the past. The problem exists in many parts of the country, and it has to be addressed realistically. Denials do not help.