-TheCitizen.in Society rejects them even when their fathers leave the job In a village in Odisha, 35 year old Tapan Kumar Gochchayat comes from a family of manual scavengers where his grandfather worked as a ‘safai karamchari’ all his life. Very early in life, Kumar decided not to go into the same profession. He worked hard to get an education and create a life of dignity for himself. But even today his...
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India's abject failure on manual scavenging -Partha Pratim Mitra
-The Telegraph Despite being prohibited the practice remains widespread and unmodernised, and violators are not punished The death of five sanitation workers in Delhi is a grim reminder of the hostile conditions that confront manual scavenging in India. Manual scavenging has been prohibited by law. Yet, it remains unchecked. There is also a distinct lack of effort to make this objectionable occupation safe and dignified. This is the net result of institutional...
More »Four years after Swachh: cleaning excreta for roti in Rajasthan -Priscilla Jebaraj
-The Hindu A Rajasthan village is free of open defecation — on paper Behnara (Bharatpur District): The narrow village street is lined with gutters, dotted with excreta flushed out from latrines inside upper caste homes. Santa Devi pulls a corner of her sari over her mouth and begins to push the morning quota of waste into her metal basin using only a makeshift shovel and broom. Once she has thrown the...
More »Bezwada Wilson, national convenor of the Safai Karamchari Andolan, interviewed by Ahan Penkar
-Caravan Magazine On 9 September 2018, five sanitation workers died due to inhalation of toxic fumes while cleaning a sewage tank in West Delhi. Several media reports regarding the incident noted that the men did not have any safety gear, indicating that the unavailability of equipment led to their death. The police reportedly registered a case against theengineer who was in charge of managing the sewage tank,under Sections 304 and 304A...
More »One manual scavenging death every five days: Official data -Shalini Nair
-The Indian Express Data obtained by The Indian Express shows that only 109 of the 170 districts have filed their response, and only 62 have identified at least one manual scavenger. New Delhi: SINCE JANUARY 1, 2017, one person has died every five days, on an average, while cleaning sewers and septic tanks across the country, according to numbers collated by the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK), the statutory body that...
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