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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Anti-scavenging law only on paper-Ananya Sengupta

Anti-scavenging law only on paper-Ananya Sengupta

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published Published on Apr 21, 2012   modified Modified on Apr 21, 2012

Not a single case has been registered under a 19-year-old law that prohibits hiring of manual scavengers and building dry latrines.

The revelations come weeks after the latest census data showed 25 lakh households across the country depend on manual scavengers to remove night soil from latrines.

Union social justice minister Mukul Wasnik conceded implementing the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrine (Prohibition) Act, 1993, had been “weak”.

“The implementation of the law has been weak and not a single person has been booked under it. It was initially considered appropriate to make the law more stringent by amending it. However, the National Advisory Council (headed by Sonia Gandhi) recommended that a new law may be enacted under Article 248 of the Constitution as manual scavenging pertains to human dignity and not sanitation.”

But Bindeshwar Pathak, director of Sulabh International who has campaigned for the scavengers’ rights to resettlement and dignity, stressed the need to go beyond laws.

“What these people (the scavengers) need is social acceptance and not acts, laws and legislation. It is a social menace and needs to be addressed through social measures. No act can address the issue.”

Pathak had other suggestions, too. “There are three things that ought to be done by the government — give these people education, give them vocational training and help them perform rituals of the upper castes so they become part of the mainstream,” he said.

Pathak, widely known for his work on low-cost sanitation in the country, said it came as no surprise to him that laws related to manual scavenging hadn’t borne fruit.

Part of the problem, he argued, is the government’s reluctance to follow models such as those being followed by his organisation.

The new bill, scheduled to be tabled in the monsoon session, includes stiff violations. For instance, civic bodies and officials could get two years of jail and be fined Rs 2 lakh if they are found using labour to clean sewer and tanks without sufficient protective gear.

The social justice ministry has also proposed increasing the punishment for those using manual scavengers from a year and/or Rs 2,000 fine under the current law to a one-year term and/or Rs 50,000 fine “for the first offence”. Subsequent violations could invite more stringent terms, with possibly two years in jail, and higher fines. Offences may also be “cognisable and non-bailable”. The 1993 act does not have such provisions.

But Sulabh chief Pathak suggested awareness and change in attitudes were just as important because manual scavenging, although a degrading act, was rooted in society and could not be eradicated by making laws.

“In two towns in Rajasthan — Alwar and Tonk — Sulabh has spearheaded a campaign in which manual scavengers have moved to becoming small-time vendors and now are even invited to Brahmin households for tea and for weddings. They now make pickles, papads and in some cases even do facials in Brahmin houses. These are the models the government should follow instead of making arbitrary laws.”

The Telegraph, 21 April, 2012, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120421/jsp/nation/story_15399910.jsp#.T5KDMrMzBGQ


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