These Stats on Manual Scavenging Will Horrify You!
Brand new National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) data reveals that since the beginning of 2017, on average one manual scavenger dies every five days cleaning sewers and septic tanks.
A report by the Indian Express shows the NCSK collected this data based on media reports and statistics provided by a few state governments. The NCSK is a statutory body set up by an Act of parliament.
This is the first official attempt to try and set up a record of manual scavengers’ deaths.
A total of 123 people have lost their live while cleaning sewers and septic tanks since January 1, 2017, according to the NCSK.
The death of a sanitation worker while cleaning a sewer line in Dwarka’s Dabri area last Friday has brought the spotlight back on the dangerous practice of manual scavenging. Last week too, five men died due to suffocation when they entered a sewage treatment plant in New Delhi’s Moti Nagar area.
The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, forbids any person being employed for manual scavenging by any agency or person. As picking up untreated human excreta is harmful to one’s health and hygiene, the Act aims to completely ban the practice.
In 2013, right after the prohibition act came into force, the government had recognised 12,742 manual scavengers in 13 states, out of which 82 per cent were in Uttar Pradesh alone. But the 2011 census showed that 740,078 households across the country were still dependent on the manual scavengers for cleaning their toilets.
In January 2018, the government has begun a fresh process to try and count the number of manual scavengers in India, so that rehabilitation measures can be planned. This time, the government has taken the help of NGOs and civil society groups that work in the are. Already, the number of manual scavengers counted is four times higher than the last survey that was conducted.
Bezwada Wilson, founder of Safai Karamchari Andolan (SKA), said that the central government has ignored repeated recommendations for extending the survey to include another 300 districts and sewer-septic tank cleaners. Wilson was part of the team that assisted the central government in carrying the recent survey in 170 districts.
“Their deaths are under-counted and so are their lives. Even the National Crime Records Bureau was agreeable to our suggestion that they should document the deaths separately. But nothing has happened on the front, either,” he said.
“The Social Justice Ministry, which is in charge of this subject, mostly deals with the issue of compensation post deaths and rehabilitation of the handful identified as doing this job. Ministries such as Housing and Urban Affairs should be looking into the complete mechanisation of sewage cleaning, which is the only way to eliminate the practice of getting people to clean it manually. But they have never taken responsibility for the deaths.”
Watch this AJ + video on manual scavenging in India below
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