{"id":34013,"date":"2018-10-30T15:27:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=34013"},"modified":"2018-10-30T15:27:00","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:57:00","slug":"manual-scavenging-law-to-be-amended-to-hike-compensation-for-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/manual-scavenging-law-to-be-amended-to-hike-compensation-for-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"Manual scavenging law to be amended to hike compensation for deaths\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/manual-scavenging-law-to-be-amended-to-hike-compensation-for-deaths-4937937\/\"><b>Manual scavenging law to be amended to hike compensation for deaths<\/b><\/a><b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Context<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is the manual scavenging law about?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This law makes it an offence to:<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Employ people as manual scavengers to clean insanitary latrines.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Employ people to clean sewers and septic tanks without protective gear.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Construct insanitary latrines.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not demolish or convert insanitary latrines within a certain period of this Act coming into force.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Manual scavenging, with its definition limited to manual cleaning of dry latrines, was outlawed in India in 1993.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was only in 2013 that the amended \u2018The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act\u2019 recognised more hazardous forms of the practice including the work of sewer and septic tank cleaners, whose deaths were entirely unaccounted for until then.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Does this law provide for rehabilitation of manual scavengers?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rules and procedure for the rehabilitation of manual scavengers through training in alternate employment, financial help and help with purchasing property.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>How many deaths have been reported so far?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Members concede that even these states \u2014 Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu have identified only around 270 cases of deaths<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What is the way ahead?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The survey, covering 15 major states, will be completed within six months.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The SECC data shows that in villages alone, 1.82 lakh households have at least one-member cleaning dry latrines.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">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<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The law provides for prosecuting anyone even engaging people for manually handling human waste but there is not a single prosecution till date<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Manual scavenging law to be amended to hike compensation for deaths\u00a0 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?&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/manual-scavenging-law-to-be-amended-to-hike-compensation-for-deaths\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Manual scavenging law to be amended to hike compensation for deaths\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704920822},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}