Bengaluru: With about 4,500 of its manual scavengers yet to be rehabilitated, the Karnataka government has approved an action plan to provide a one-time cash assistance (OTCA), direct loans and other provisions to the socially ostracised group.
“The action plan has been approved,” K.B Mallikarjuna, Managing Director of the Karnataka State Safai Karmachari Development Corporation (KSSKDC), told ThePrint earlier this week. The KSSKDC falls under the state’s welfare department. “There is a one-time cash assistance which we give manual scavengers…we have kept it for around 4,500 people, which comes up to about Rs 18 crore, and direct loans and other schemes valued at around Rs 12 crore. This totals Rs 30 crore.”
The term manual scavengers is used for people engaged in the profession of removal of excrement from public streets, cleaning septic tanks, gutters and sewers. Manual scavenging has been banned across the country since 1993 but continues to be practised, largely due to inadequate infrastructure across rural and even urban centres, adding to the already existent caste-based divide, as has widely been reported.
As part of this rehabilitation plan, manual scavengers get Rs 40,000 each as OTCA. Mallikarjuna said that about 1,500 people have already been given the OTCA and ID cards which give them formal recognition, making them eligible for government benefits.
State welfare department officials confirmed to ThePrint that the OTCA was last handed out in around 2020-21.
Since 2013, the state government has conducted at least three surveys of manual scavengers. According to the data shared by the KSSKDC, their current number stands at 7,493 across Karnataka. Of these, Bengaluru alone accounts for 1,625. Mysuru, Kolar and Mandya have 1,381, 1,224 and 848 manual scavengers, respectively. They said many of them are dead, untraceable or don’t want to be associated with this anymore.
Officials from the social welfare department claim that those identified as manual scavengers may not be engaged in the practice but the assistance is to help remove the stigma attached to their earlier profession. The government also gives them life skill training which helps them secure jobs in other professions, they say.
Any case of violation of the Manual Scavenging Act attracts two years of imprisonment, fine up to Rs 2 lakh or both. It also attracts a case under The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act since almost all who work as manual scavengers are from extremely marginalised classes.
Despite the ban, activists and even government officials point out that there has been just one conviction in the state for violation of The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavenger & Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
“Most of the people who employ manual scavengers are never prosecuted and in the case of death, there is a furore for a few days, Rs 10 lakh compensation by the government and then nothing else happens,” K.B. Oblesh, state convener of Safai Karamchari Kavalu Samithi (SKVS), an association set up to protect the interests of manual scavengers and other sanitation workers, told ThePrint.
Also read: Karnataka govt unveils ‘practical framework’ for fact-check unit — ‘not here to control narrative’
‘Deaths happen as chain’
In April 2022, the Union government claimed that the practice of manual scavenging has been eradicated from the country, according to a written reply by Virendra Kumar, the Union minister of social justice and empowerment, in the Rajya Sabha.
But he also added that 161 persons across the country died due to accidents while undertaking hazardous cleaning of sewer and septic tanks in the last three years.
According to the data shared by the KSSKDC, 96 people have died since 1993 in the state and many more suffer from respiratory diseases as the pits produce noxious gasses, and that most manual scavengers have no equipment to clean them.
“Normally, deaths of manual scavengers happen as a chain…One person enters and the gasses kill him, then someone tries to retrieve him but also dies in the process. As many as three people can die in such cases,” said one government official in the know, requesting anonymity.
In light of the ongoing challenges faced by manual scavengers, the Karnataka government is also focusing on employment opportunities for locals. Recent proposals suggest that all multinational corporations operating in the state should display the number of Kannadigas they employ, which aims to address concerns about job opportunities for local residents. This initiative is part of a broader effort to support marginalized communities and ensure that local populations benefit from economic growth. For more details, see Karnataka govt to mandate display board of Kannadiga staff in MNCs, Oppn calls it ‘political drama’.
For instance, on 3 April, 2016, while two men died during manual scavenging in Doddaballapur on the outskirts of Bengaluru, two others died while trying to rescue them, according to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the All India Central Council of Trade Union (AICCTU) against the Union, state government and its departments in the Karnataka High Court in 2020. ThePrint has seen the PIL.
The AICCTU argues that manual scavenging has manifested itself as a social practice now rather than just an occupation.
“By virtue of being employed in a profession which is seen as dirty, unclean and unhygienic, the workers and their families face ostracisation and social immobility and this affects their morale, leading to inferiority complex and further segregation,” its PIL said.
“This form of caste-based occupation further results in perpetuating caste inequalities and discrimination, and becomes a social practice rather than an occupation, trapping the community into this practice,” it added.
State Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has, on 7 September, instructed the social welfare department to provide all legal help in cases of atrocities against marginalised classes.
“It is disgraceful that the rate of punishment in the state is just 3.44 percent. The CM suggested increasing this rate further. He said that it is shameful that this rate is very less in the state which is a conscious society,” according to a statement by the CMO. He also said that the government will consider setting up fast track courts.
Where Bengaluru stands
In 2007, Bengaluru city expanded from around 300 square kilometers to 800 square kilometers as 110 surrounding villages became part of one of the biggest urban centres in the country, as reported widely by the media.
And 16 years later, the city is witnessing its highest growth, in terms of housing and commercial spaces, in these new areas. The catch is that there is still no basic infrastructure like drains, sewage pipelines and roads in several of these places, say experts.
“There is no rule to force or mandate that houses are supposed to connect to sewerage lines. Many individual residences or small apartment complexes tend to make pits for waste which requires cleaning,” Siddharth Joshi, an advocate at the Alternative Law Forum (ALF), a Bengaluru-based firm focused on issues of social and economic justice, said to ThePrint.
According to the AICCTU petition cited above, the 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census by the Union Government shows that there were 1,68,066 manual scavengers in the rural areas of the country, of whom 15,375 were in Karnataka.
It adds that there were about 1.32 crore households in Karnataka (2011 census) but only 22.7 percent of them were connected to a piped sewer system, comprising 53.3 percent of the 53.16 lakh urban households and merely 2 percent of the 78.64 lakh rural households.
Electronic cleaning or suction trucks charge anywhere between Rs 5,000-10,000 (in Karnataka) for a one-time cleaning of such pits but regular maintenance, like clearing clogs in inspection pits, are done by employing manual scavengers, Oblesh said.
“When the Prime Minister goes to the USA, he proudly shares that we (India) are open defecation-free. Is this true? Similarly, district administrations in Karnataka and other states hid the statistics on manual scavenging till they were forced to do surveys by the courts in 2013. Since then, they have identified nearly 8,000 in Karnataka alone. But the number is much much higher,” he added.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
Also read: How Hindutva activist ‘tricked’ man into paying Rs 5-cr for poll ticket with ‘paid actors & a swami’