For 1.8L manual scavengers, swachh life is a distant dream

[prasad1]

Share:

Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp Email Share Link

A woman of Radhna Enayatpur village, UP, who works as a manual scavengerNEW DELHI: "I get up in the morning, and on an empty stomach, go to lift mael (faeces). I take a bath when I return, but I still feel dirty. I don't feel like eating because I see faeces everywhere — on myself, in my food. The feeling of being dirty doesn't go away all day,'' says Suman.

Suman's father is a mechanic in Kanpur and she had never lifted night soil before marriage. "I didn't know I would have to lift mael. Initially I refused, but was beaten up. I had no other means to earn money here, I had no choice,'' she recalls, holding a sickly three-year-old on her hip.

The 'Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers, 2013' law bans manual cleaning of night soil, septic tanks and sewers. According to the socio-economic census 2011, India has 1.8 lakh manual scavengers. Inexplicably, surveys done by states throw up a significantly lower figure of 12,226. Despite the prevalence of manual scavengers, the ministry of social justice and empowerment says it has given a one-time assistance of Rs 40,000 to a measly 8,619 people across India. Whatever the real number, in the narrow bylanes of village Radhna Inayetpur in western UP, about 30km from Meerut Cantonment and 146 km from Delhi, time appears to have stood still.

Pawan, aged between 10 and 12, says "Ask my mother" when asked how old she is. She has watched policewomen in films and sometimes wonders what it would be like to be one. "I studied till Class V but then my mother (who is afflicted with polio) couldn't lift the heavy baskets. So I had to start lifting faeces,'' she says. Pawan is accompanied by her sister-in-law Babli who was forced into the profession after marriage.

For Suman, Pawan and many others, the day starts at 8am down the lanes of the village. They stand outside homes, or enter from a separate entrance earmarked for manual scavengers. Someone in the house drops dry ash on the mounting excreta that is usually piled up in a corner of the open courtyard separated from the house by a low wall that serves as 'dry latrine'. Babli scrapes the shit with a piece of metal, covers it with grass and leaves, hitches it over her head in a basket before heading for the next lane. Each has 10-35 homes to cover. They dump the faeces along the way, piles of garbage and the kachcha road merging into one another.

In exchange, they get dry rotis, leftover vegetable if they are lucky (barely a day's meal) and a few bags of grain in a year, and sometimes money when there's a wedding at home.

Ironically, the NDA government has committed Rs 1.34 trillion for the Swachh Bharat campaign, one of the largest commitments yet for sanitation in the country. And yet, amid the glitzy advertising and public relations campaign, the people who are at the heart of the sanitation programme have been marginalised. The five-year outlay of Rs 4,656 crore committed for rehabilitation of manual scavengers in 2013 was reduced to Rs 10 crore in the present Budget, Bezwada Wilson, national convenor of the Safai Karamchari Andolan (SKA), said.




But the road out of hell doesn't necessarily lead to heaven. With modernisation, many families are switching to water and sewage connections in toilets — although Baso, a farmhand who forked out Rs 900 for a connection some time ago, never got hers. As the number of homes with dry latrines shrinks — especially among the influential in the village — so does the food. For those looking beyond the confines of Radhna Inayetpur, lack of opportunity and finance combine with age-old taboos to squeeze them from both ends and break their spirit.

The social ostracisation is so pervasive that villagers openly boycott the community. Says SKA worker Maya Gautam, "I asked the village people, why don't you help your brothers and sisters? Will you buy stuff from them if they set up a small shop? The response I got was... we have to show Allah our face.''
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/For-1-8L-manual-scavengers-swachh-life-is-a-distant-dream/articleshow/51675927.cms



Instead of worrying about the number of particular sects, we should be doing constructive work in saving India.

 

[yesmohan]

Manual scavenger system is almost abolished in Tamilnadu. Manual scavengers are given alternate job like sweepers, cleaners etc.

 

[tbs]

hi

in my grand father's village,... we had regular manual scavenger system in coimbatore area....i had always pity on them...

my grandmother used to give some food for them....

 

[yesmohan]

hi

in my grand father's village,... we had regular manual scavenger system in coimbatore area....i had always pity on them...

my grandmother used to give some food for them....

Sir,
Is the system still in vogue ?

 

[tbs]

Sir,
Is the system still in vogue ?

hi

not anymore....we have toilet system now.. due to this problem.....i dont like go to grandfather's home during my younger days..

another problem ....water scarcity in that area....i prefer open areas/paddy fields/river bed area in palakkad....becoz open

system and plenty of water....

 

[prasad1]

Sir,
Is the system still in vogue ?

Though there is ban on manual scavenging under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, activists in the city say that there is little or no monitoring to prevent the practice.
C.J. Rajan, Head, Samam Kudimakkal Iyakkam, says that the Act clearly specifies that the district or State machinery should strictly monitor and ensure that no manual scavenging is practised. “Manual scavenging is something that is rooted deep in society as many are still engaged in it,” Mr. Rajan says, adding it is the collective responsibility of the people to prevent this practice.
“Manual scavenging continues to take place quietly in many areas in the city since no one voices dissent against it. Instead of waiting for the government to take action, conservancy workers must be aware of the ban and refuse to do such work which is undertaken under dangerous conditions in the absence of proper equipment or machinery,” he says.
The engineering division of Madurai Corporation has on its rolls 240 contract workers who are required to remove blocks in the underground drainage system by entering into the drains through manholes. These workers report to drainage inspectors and sanitary inspectors.

[h=1]Four manual scavengers die in South Chennai[/h]

• KV Lakshmana, Hindustan Times, Chennai |
• Updated: Jan 19, 2016 14:19 IST

The late implementation of the Supreme Court ruling banning manual scavenging has resulted in yet another tragedy with four people dying after inhaling poisonous gases when they were working in drainage pits and sewage tank of a private hotel chain at Karapakkam near Thoraipakkam in South Chennai on Tuesday morning.
The four were hired by the private hotel chain to clean its sewage tanks and pits. Kancheepuram District administration officials denied any responsibility saying that it was the hotel that had hired the four labourers, and not the state.
An investigation is underway, but so far no arrests have been made.
The fire department personnel had taken out the four bodies and they will be sent to the government hospital at Royapetta for a post mortem examination.
The practice of manual scavenging is officially banned, but it is still frequently practiced.
The Supreme Court had in a 2014 direction ordered all state governments to ban manual scavenging.
So far nearly 200 people have lost their lives when cleaning sewage pits and drainage systems in Tamil Nadu.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india...uth-chennai/story-i0I1W1WpEAFH0e9CPZgNXK.html

 

[yesmohan]

There were two categories of employees in Municipal corporations.
One is scavengers..... who used to clean the old type dry latrines and carry the night soil baggage / buckets, on their head.
Govt. claims that these category of employment is now abolished.

The other category is called drainage cleaners. They are still in service and deployed for cleaning the drainages as no municipal corporation is equipped with mechanical devices to clean the drainages.

 

[auh]

There were two categories of employees in Municipal corporations.
One is scavengers..... who used to clean the old type dry latrines and carry the night soil baggage / buckets, on their head.
Govt. claims that these category of employment is now abolished.

The other category is called drainage cleaners. They are still in service and deployed for cleaning the drainages as no municipal corporation is equipped with mechanical devices to clean the drainages.

I think the former could possibly exist in remote villages.

I remember the time when the old fashioned toilet (two stones with a gap in between ), in my grandparent's agraharam house was abandoned in place of the new one. That should be somewhere in the late 80s or early 90s.