Manual scavenging law to be amended to hike compensation for deaths 

Manual scavenging law to be amended to hike compensation for deaths 

Context

• he Union government is set to amend the rules of the legislation that outlaws manual scavenging to hike compensation to Rs 10 lakh each to families of those who die while cleaning sewers or septic tanks.

What is the manual scavenging law about?

• This law makes it an offence to:
• Employ people as manual scavengers to clean insanitary latrines.
• Employ people to clean sewers and septic tanks without protective gear.
• Construct insanitary latrines.
• Not demolish or convert insanitary latrines within a certain period of this Act coming into force.
• Manual scavenging, with its definition limited to manual cleaning of dry latrines, was outlawed in India in 1993.
• It was only in 2013 that the amended ‘The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act’ recognised more hazardous forms of the practice including the work of sewer and septic tank cleaners, whose deaths were entirely unaccounted for until then.

Does this law provide for rehabilitation of manual scavengers?

• The rules and procedure for the rehabilitation of manual scavengers through training in alternate employment, financial help and help with purchasing property.
• In 2014, the Supreme Court ordered that state governments have to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation each to families of all deceased workers since 1993.

How many deaths have been reported so far?

• Members concede that even these states — Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu have identified only around 270 cases of deaths
• However, even four years since the Act came into force, several states including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi have reported the numbers as zero.

What is the way ahead?

• The ministry will involve a third-party surveyor to determine the number of workers manually cleaning dry latrines, open drains, pits, railway tracks, septic tanks and sewers.
• The survey, covering 15 major states, will be completed within six months.
• The only data available now is the Socio-Economic Caste Census, which excludes sewer and septic tank cleaners as well as those employed in cities.
• The SECC data shows that in villages alone, 1.82 lakh households have at least one-member cleaning dry latrines.
• The NSKFDC has no mandate to demand data from the Railways, which is one of the largest employers of manual scavengers but refuses to acknowledge a single case
• The law provides for prosecuting anyone even engaging people for manually handling human waste but there is not a single prosecution till date