New Delhi: When asked how many incidents of manual scavenging from the last five years had been brought to his ministry’s attention, social justice and empowerment junior minister Ramdas Athawale said in parliament that “there is no report” on the matter.
Athawale was responding on Wednesday (July 24) to a question by the Trinamool Congress’s Saket Gokhale, who represents West Bengal in the Rajya Sabha.
“There is no report of [the] practice of manual scavenging in the country in the last five years,” Athawale said in his response.
On how many manual scavenging cases had been flagged through the ministry’s Swachhata Abhiyaan app since 2020, Athawale said 6,256 cases were reported in total across 114 districts but that “none of the cases were found to be credible”.
Manual scavenging is officially defined as manually handling human excreta in ‘insanitary latrines’, in open drains or pits where such latrines discharge human excreta into, on railway tracks, or other spaces that the Union or state governments notify.
The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 makes it illegal for someone to hire a person to do manual scavenging without providing them with devices and protective gear as mandated by the Union government.
It also provides for the rehabilitation of the people whom the government identifies as manual scavengers and of their family members.
Bezwada Wilson, convener of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA) organisation that works to eradicate manual scavenging, accused Athawale’s response of “[implying] that there is no instance of manual scavenging in the country”.
“It is a fact that manual scavenging is still blatantly and illegally practiced in many parts of the country, specifically in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Jammu and Kashmir,” Bezwada said in a statement on Wednesday.
Safai Karmacharis disappointed with #Budget2024There is no mention of persons engaged in manual scavenging, in entire Budget. Even the scheme meant for the rehabilitation of manual scavengers (SRMS) has been outrageously scrapped #stopkillingus #DalitLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/s5wfoGSHtK
— Bezwada Wilson (@BezwadaWilson) July 24, 2024
He also said the Union budget presented on Tuesday had “no mention” of manual scavengers and that the self-employment scheme for rehabilitating former manual scavengers, known by its acronym SRMS, “has been outrageously scrapped”.
In response to a question in the Lok Sabha last year about manual scavenging cases in India, Athawale had given the same response as on Wednesday, saying there was “no report of people currently engaged in manual scavenging in the country”.
The social justice ministry has also claimed that the “menace of manual scavenging has almost been eliminated” and that “there is no evidence of the continuation of the practice of manual scavenging,” which activists such as Bezwada contest.
The 2013 Act separately defines the “hazardous cleaning” of sewers and septic tanks as its manual cleaning without protective gear and cleaning devices as notified by the government. It makes it illegal for someone to employ a person to perform hazardous cleaning.
In response to a different question last year, Athawale said in parliament that there had been 339 deaths in sewers or septic tanks between 2018 and 2023, with nine of these deaths recorded so far in 2023.
In response to a different question in July last year, Athawale said in parliament that there had been 339 deaths in sewers or septic tanks between 2018 and 2023, with nine of these deaths having been recorded so far in 2023.
The SRMS rehabilitation scheme was subsumed into a broader scheme known as the National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem or NAMASTE. As of the 2023-24 budget year it was allocated Rs 97.41 crore in funds, according to Athawale.
