EXTENT AND REHABILITATION CONDITION OF MANUAL SCAVENGERS IN INDIA: AN OVERVIEW

Economics

It has been more than five years when the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act was passed in the Parliament of India in 2013. The “Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013” clearly defines “manual scavenger” as a person engaged or employed, at the commencement of this Act or at any time thereafter, by an individual or a local authority or an agency or a contractor, for manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling in any manner, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or pit. No wonder, this act failed to prohibit the scavenging in the country but the prohibition on the lives and deaths of these scavengers can surely be experienced. Despite of that, every year, more scavengers are added into the work of scavenging. This degraded and horrendous form of work violates Human Rights Act and Article 46 of Constitution of India. In the urban areas, the sewage workers (comes under manual scavenging) are the life line of these cities. Sewers, the lifelines of modern cities are proving to be death lines for the sewer workers. How much more slaying it will take for the Government, to declare it a national emergency? It is not only the question of human lives but also of human self-respect. There is a need of movement that transcends caste and social structure and may emancipate the sewage workers from such menial jobs. In this paper, we tried to assess the extent of manual scavengers in India and their rehabilitation.

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