38 DISTRICTS OF SIX STATES OF THE COUNTRY STILL CONTINUING MANUAL SCAVENGING

As per the “Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (MS Act, 2013) manual scavenging is a prohibited activity in the country with effect from 6.12.2013. All districts have been requested to either declare themselves free from manual scavenging or upload the data of insanitary latrines and manual scavengers associated with it on the Mobile App “Swachhta Abhiyan”.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Ramdas Athawale in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today. He further said that there is no deadline for districts to declare themselves manually scavenging-free. As of 10.12.2023, 38 districts of six states of the country have not reported themselves as manual scavenging-free; details thereof are as follows-

State-wise number of districts, who have not reported manual scavenging free

 

S.No.	Name of States/UTs	Number of District
1.	Assam	3
2.	Jharkhand	1
3	Madhya Pradesh	10
4.	Manipur	9
5	Meghalaya	2
6	Telangana	13

 

There is no report of people currently engaged in manual scavenging in the country.

Manual scavenging as defined under Section 2 (1) (g) of the “Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (MS Act, 2013)” is prohibited with effect from 6.12.2013. No person or agency can engage or employ any person for manual scavenging from that date.

It was back in 2013 that the then Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had banned manual scavenging in the National Capital Region (NCR). Regardless, there are at present, as per official figures, 58,098 “eligible manual scavengers” across the country, who manually clean sewers and septic tanks and handle human excreta. Fast forward to 2023. While presenting the Union Budget on February 1, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that all cities and towns would switch to 100 percent mechanical de-sludging of septic tanks and sewers, putting an end to manual scavenging.

On February 8, 2023,  Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Ramdas Athawale, told the Rajya Sabha that at least 308 individuals have died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks in the past five years (2018-2022), of which 52 are from Tamil Nadu, 46 from Uttar Pradesh, 40 from Haryana, 38 from Maharashtra, and 33 from Delhi. (Experts say the actual figure could be higher since FIRs are not registered in many cases.)

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