Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Eliminate manual scavenging practice' that was published in Newsband

Eliminate manual scavenging practice

Five young men, who were employed to clean a septic tank in an upmarket residential community in New Delhi, died. Five workers died in a septic tank in Odisha. The workers in Delhi were apparently asked to perform the task in violation of Section 7 of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013; a violation can be punished with two years of imprisonment or fine or both.

Mechanised cleaning of septic tanks is the prescribed norm. More and more incidents are being reported of workers dying in septic tanks. If the law on manual scavenging is to be effective, the penalties must be uniformly and visibly enforced.

India’s sanitation problem is complex, and the absence of adequate toilets is only one lacuna. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan should come up with a scheme for scientific maintenance that will end manual cleaning of septic tanks.

Cleanliness should not be considered as just a derogatory job for the downtrodden to make money change. It is unacceptable to the elitists, rural and urban dwellers the so called rich to afford a toilet too rich to clean it properly (or get it cleaned).

'Manual scavenging' should be replaced by 'mechanized cleaning'. This way lives can be saved. Cleanliness should be sustainable not life threatening.

It is really shocking that there has been large numbers of death of scavengers in recent times. We need to work on modalities for a system that helps stop such deaths. With the changing times and changes in the technologies we need to immediately improve on the system.

It is a shame that sanitation and reforms related to it couldn’t be deployed on the vast scale so far. It is the 21^st century and we are not free from manual scavenging. Then how can we claim ourselves as a developing country if we can't pay attention towards such necessary matters. There appears to be a lack of inclination towards solving the issue. Despite so many incidents, the government is almost silent. Nothing has been done to improve cleaning of sceptic tanks. There is a casual approach to this problem because sanitation workers come from poorest section of our society.

It is highly unfortunate that still manual scavenging is being done resulting in loss of lives. What about Swach Bharat which places a tall claim for clean India? Funds should be made available by the government for developing technologies to clean up sewage, plastic wastes, and other garbage. Laws must be enforced very strictly in this matter.