States Governments Not Ready to Provide Manual Scavengers Compensation

On August 30, 2017, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment held a consultative meeting with the National and State Commissions for Safai Karamcharis, representatives from different states, and the Civil Society organisations working on the issue of Manual Scavenging. The need to update and identify the number of people working as manual scavengers was discussed. Also, the need to strengthen ‘The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013’ was discussed.

Speaking to Newsclick, Sant Lal Chawaria, Chairperson, Delhi Commission for Safai Karamcharis said that they were planning to redo the survey to identify the actual number of Manual Scavengers in the country with the help of NGOs who were working on the subject.

The issue of compensation, for the victims who have to be rehabilitated and for the ones who died while working, were also discussed. Dr. Renu Chachar, Coordinator - Sewerage Workers’ Platform, Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), who was also part of the consultative meeting said, “Different states were not ready to provide the complete list of the people who died in the sewer or septic tanks, as they did not want to give everyone the compensation.” She added, “From SKA we intervened and said compensation was to be provided to family members who died in septic tanks or sewers since 1993. This is the mandate of the Supreme Court Judgement.”

The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, Chairperson, Manhar V Zala spoke to Newsclick and said, “The 2013 Act mandates that the people, engaged in manual scavenging, are identified and rehabilitated. It is an offence to still have people work as manual scavengers so the state governments do not give the actual data.” He added, “Since I assumed charge of the Commission, I wrote to the state governments to implement the Act.” On the issue of the State Monitoring Committees and District Vigilance Committees to oversee the implementation of the Act, the Chairperson said, “Even though the committees exist, they do not meet regularly to monitor the implementation of the act.”

All the three members Newsclick spoke to, were of the opinion that “100 % mechanization” is needed for cleaning sewer and septic tanks.