Time to root out manual scavenging

Many studies and reports in newspapers have pointed to the continuance of the shameful practice of manual scavenging in most parts of the country. The practice has been banned for decades through legislation in parliament, first in 1993 and later in 2013 with the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, which has a wider scope and stricter prohibition. But the implementation of the law has been patchy. The government admitted in April 2022 that 971 sanitation workers had been killed while cleaning sewers and septic tanks since 1993. As many as 321 people have died in the past five years from cleaning drains. The figures vary and obviously some deaths are not counted at all.

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Last year, the government admitted that deaths had occurred “due to accidents while undertaking hazardous cleaning of sewer and septic tanks”, though before that it had denied the existence of the practice. The law is violated in many ways. Sometimes, workers do the cleaning work by hand and without protective equipment. They aren’t considered manual scavengers by a strange interpretation of the law. There have been interventions and directions by the Supreme Court also on the matter.

In that context, the announcement in the Union budget of fresh efforts to put an end to the practice are welcome. It is proposed to enable all cities and towns to undertake 100 per cent mechanical desludging of septic tanks and sewers to transition from “manhole” to “machine-hole” mode. Scientific management of dry and wet waste will also receive attention. Such initiatives, including the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, have been launched in the past. The reasons for failure need to be evaluated and strategies should be formed accordingly.

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The court was told in October last year that every five days, a manual scavenger died while working. A petition sought seeking initiation of criminal proceedings for culpable homicide not amounting to murder against officials, agencies, contractors or any other person involved in engaging or employing manual scavengers resulting in their death at work.

Most manual scavengers are from the Dalit community and the profession is mixed up with casteism and extreme social and economic backwardness. Local governments and the contractors they employ for cleaning work go in for cheap labour. Plans for rehabilitation of manual scavengers by providing them alternative means of livelihood and other incentives have not worked well. A shift to complete mechanisation of sewage cleaning and management, which would work out cheaper than engaging manual labour, would help. There are attempts to use robots for the purpose. Allocation of money is not enough, and it must translate into effective steps to root out this most dehumanising practice.