Manual Scavenging Why in News The Ministry of Social Justice | Abhishek Srivastava Sir [UPSC]

Manual Scavenging

Why in News
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment informed that a total of 161 people died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks in the last three years.

Manual Scavenging
Manual scavenging is the practice of removing human excreta by hand from sewers or septic tanks.

Concerns
Scavenging is mostly carried out by Dalits, an outcast community also known as “untouchables” within India’s ancient system of caste hierarchies.

Absence of planning for the maintenance of sewerage, septic tanks, and waste disposal systems in the urban policies made for the city by the state and private companies.

The number of people killed while cleaning sewers and septic tanks has increased over the last few years.

Steps Taken

Extension of the tenure of the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) for three years beyond 31st March, 2022. The major beneficiaries would be the Safai Karamcharis and identified manual scavengers in the country.

The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993 have provision of imprisonment of up to one year and a fine of Rs 2,000 for pushing a person to manual scavenging.

Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS) 2017 whose objective is to rehabilitate remaining manual scavengers and their dependents in alternative occupations, in a time-bound manner.

Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 bans the use of any individual for manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of or otherwise handling in any manner, human excreta till its disposal.

The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (Amendment) Bill, 2020 proposes to completely mechanize sewer cleaning, introduce ways for ‘on-site’ protection and provide compensation.

Swachhta Abhiyan App to identify and geotag the data of insanitary latrines and manual scavengers so that the insanitary latrines can be replaced with sanitary latrines and rehabilitate all the manual scavengers to provide dignity of life to them.

The Building and Maintenance of Insanitary Latrines Act of 2013- It outlaws construction or maintenance of unsanitary toilets, and provides a constitutional responsibility to provide alternative jobs and other assistance to manual scavenging communities, as reparation for historical injustice and indignity.

Safaimitra Suraksha Challenge- for all states to make sewer-cleaning mechanised by April 2021, if any human needs to enter a sewer line in case of unavoidable emergency, proper gear and oxygen tanks, etc., are to be provided.

Supreme Court's Rulings
Prevent and control the practice and also to prosecute the offenders.
Directed the government to pay a compensation of Rs. 10 lakh rupees to the family members of those killed in acts of manual scavenging since 1993.

Constitutional Safeguards
The Right to Live with Dignity is implicit in the Fundamental Rights guaranteed in Part III of the Constitution.

Article 46 provides that the State shall protect the weaker sections particularly, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.

What more can be done
Empowering Local Administration: The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan should make expansion of the sewer network a top priority and come up with a scheme for scientific maintenance that will end the manual cleaning of septic tanks.

Social Sentisitation: To address the social sanction behind manual scavenging,
State and Society needs to take Interest: active interest in the issue and look into all possible options to accurately assess and subsequently eradicate this practice.

Proactive law implementation- The laws should be enforced vigorously to eliminate manual scavenging in its entirety.