Context: Pandemic should lead to urgency in addressing Sanitation Workers’ safety and welfare related issues.
Challenges associated with Sanitation Workers
Serious concern of Health Hazards: Frontline workers have laboured with unrelenting grit in the face of health hazards.
Inextricably they are tied with caste-based occupational roles: The bulk of such work is done by people from SCs and STs in some areas.
Subjected to discrimination, stigma, and, even, untouchability for years: The most stigmatised among them are those engaged in the manual cleaning of sewers, septic tanks, pits and drains.
Despite the Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers Act, 2013, the practice continues unabated, because sanitation work is subcontracted to private businesses and informal labourers.
Unable to get the accurate estimate of the number of manual scavengers and sanitation workers.
Way Forward: Government Initiatives for Sanitation Workers
Successful construction of toilets in the Swachh Bharat Mission-1: Construction of toilets with on-site sanitation systems in urban, peri-urban and rural areas.
Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation: Larger sanitation infrastructure.
Need to augment the sanitation value chain: In mechanised cleaning and treatment of waste.
Extension of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin and Urban) and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation to their second phases.
Self-Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers: Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has been taking measures for the rehabilitation of sanitation workers under its revised.
Provides one-time cash assistance, loans at concessional rates, subsidy and skill development training.
National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation: It is building capacities at the local government level, equipping government agencies with mechanised desludging trucks and providing financial assistance to sanitation workers, manual scavengers and their dependents.
National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem plans: Set up units at the district and local government levels to monitor sanitation services.
It will be synchronised with decentralised monitoring of violations of sanitation protocols and informal education campaigns.
Objective: to eradicate manual scavenging and ensuring welfare to sanitation workers.