Nineteen-year-old Bhikhu – a Balmiki youth was quite happy to get the get his job– cleaning the manhole. He opened the manhole cover and was waiting for the gas to come out when the bucket slipped from his hand and fell inside. Spontaneously Bhiku forgot to let the gas come out first and tried to grab the bucket. This was a fatal mistake. The next moment he fell inside the manhole, gasping for breath. His family always keep wondering what killed him– the poisonous gas or drowning in liquid shit? His is not an isolated case, some 22,000 sanitation workers meet a similar end every year.
But the greatest irony is that despite Delhi being the first state in the country to ban manual scavenging, many scavengers continue to clean dry latrines, drains and manholes in Palam-Dabri or JNU in South Delhi, Daryahganj-Chandni Chowk area in walled city or in Kailabhatta area of Ghaziabad in the National capital territoty of Delhi.
According to an estimate, some 2,871 million litres of sewage is generated in Delhi every day. In addition to this there are about 1.5 lakh manholes and sewers which require about 5,000 workers to clean and maintain. There sewerage cleaners live and die in the most pitiable conditions. According to a report aptly called “Down the Drain” every year 100 sewerage workers die due to high temperature or toxic gases after slipping or falling in the human excreta.
Many of them contract deadly diseases, skin problems and respiratory ailments.
Socially outcast they are called by derogatory names like Bhangis, Chuhra or Balmiki
Manual scavenging refers to the practice of manually cleaning, carrying, disposing or handling human excreta from dry latrines and sewers using buckets, brooms and baskets. The practice of manual scavenging is linked to India’s caste system where so-called lower castes were expected to perform this job. Manual scavengers are amon
gst the poorest and most disadvantaged communities in India.
According to a recent survey there are some 18.06 lakh scavengers still involved in inhuman job of cleaning night soil manually in the 2.6 million dry latrines across the country in Maharashtra, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura and Karnataka.
A government survey gives a much watered down estimate but accepts that more than 11000 manual scavengers are still to be found in 11 states throughout the country, including 86% in Uttar Pradesh alone.
This is surprising as considering the fact that manual scavenging is an offence under the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993. Those found violating this provision can face heavy penalties and imprisonment of up to one year.
The crux of the problem is that a total of 180,657 rural households continue to engage manual scavengers despite the inhuman practice being outlawed by the Parliament and Judiciary some two and a half years ago. Manual scavenging goes on Inspite of parliament legislation to prohibit it and the funds allocated for rehabilitation are hardly spent.
Surprisingly this is the state of affairs – one year after the launch of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a flagship scheme of the Modi government to clean the streets in the covering 4,041 towns.
Two question arise here – why does the government not take strict action to stop the practice — it knows exists?
Two what is the real reason behind continuance of the practice? Why do relatively well off Karnataka and Punjab engage more manual scavengers than Uttar Pradesh?
The answer lies in the caste system which is the reason why Supreme Court is flouted with impunity and still those responsible do not get prosecuted.
Isn’t it a mockery of the Supreme Court order that not even one chief executive officer of a local body across India been prosecuted for failing to prevent manual scavenging?
Interestingly even the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India pointed out the continuation of the practice and identified 1,402 cases in its report tabled in the Gujarat Assembly in 2014. As things stand no Indian state can claim to be scavenging free.
Can the Government of India, try and deny the facts in its own Surveys?
There are 13,14,652 toilets where human excreta is flushed in open drains, 7,94,390 dry latrines where the human excreta is cleaned manually. Seventy three percent of these are in rural areas and 27 percent are in urban areas.
Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal account for more than 72 percent of the insanitary latrines in India.
