Hazardous Cleaning in India: The Failure of Enforcement and the Path to Mechanisation
UPSC Relevance
Prelims: Social Issues (Manual Scavenging, Caste System), Governance (Schemes - NAMASTE, Swachh Bharat), Polity (Laws - Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013), Science & Tech (Sewer Robots).
Mains:
GS Paper 1: Social empowerment; Salient features of Indian Society (Caste system).
GS Paper 2: Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population and the performance of these schemes; Mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.
GS Paper 4 (Ethics): Social Justice, Conscience, Accountability of public officials.
Key Highlights from the News
A social audit report presented in Parliament reveals that 150 people died during hazardous cleaning deaths in the period 2022-23.
Despite the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013, court orders, Swachh Bharat guidelines, and the 2023 NAMASTE scheme, there has been no progress in this field.
Although 57,758 workers were identified nationwide, only 16,791 were provided with PPE kits.
However, the provision of mechanized vehicles to workers in Odisha and the use of sewer robots to clean manholes in Tamil Nadu offer hope.
The real reason for this problem is the failure in enforcement of laws. Even government tenders are still being called for cleaning using human labor.
When workers die, cases are filed against lower-ranking supervisors instead of the main employers.
Two-thirds of those engaged in this occupation are Dalits. However, rehabilitation packages are not sufficient for them to exit this profession.
A major drawback is the lack of data available on sanitation workers in rural areas.
To solve the problem, the article proposes suggestions such as completely mechanizing cleaning, making it a licensed profession, providing loans to workers to buy machinery, and extending the Namaste scheme to rural areas.
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