Manual Scavenging: Who can Abolish This?: Civil Services Mentor Magazine - November 2013

MANUAL SCAVENGING: WHO CAN ABOLISH THIS?

The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Bill, 2013 received assent of the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. With this, the Bill became an Act on 19 September 2013.

Lok Sabha, the Lower House of the Parliament, on 6 September 2013, passed the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2012. The Bill was moved by the Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Kumari Selja. The Bill seeks to prohibit employment of individuals as the manual scavengers, while at the same time providing for the rehabilitation of people involved in this kind of work.

What is Manual Scavenging?

Manual Scavenging refers to the process of removal of human waste or excreta from the unsanitary dry toilets that do not have a connection to the sewer system. This practice is primarily archetypical to South Asia. In the year 1933, legislation was passed in India for banning manual scavenging. However, the legislation was not implemented widely. In February 2013, Delhi became the first state in India to ban manual scavenging.

Lawmaking Procedure in India

The legislative proposals are brought before either the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha in the form of a bill. The bill is actually a draft of the legislative proposal. After being passed by both the Houses of the Parliament, the Bill is sent to the President of India for assent. After receiving the assent from the President of India, a bill becomes an Act of the Parliament.

The Bill seeking prohibition of manual scavenging was passed by Lok Sabha on September 6; Rajya Sabha followed suit by passing it the next day, on the concluding day of Parliament’s monsoon session. Unlike the existing law on manual scavenging enacted 20 years ago, the new proposed law also provides for rehabilitation of manual scavengers, but it still has many shortcomings.

What activists are saying?

Activists say the new Bill—The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Bill, 2012—lacks teeth and clarity, and, therefore, it is unlikely to secure a living for manual scavengers. The existing law, Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) or EMSCDL Act, which was passed in 1993, also banned manual scavenging, but till date the practice of manual scavenging continues in India. It was hoped that the proposed law would make up for the failings of the existing law.

Both EMSDCL and the new Bill are against manual scavenging, but have different perspectives, says Ashif of Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan, an advocacy group based in Indore which is working for complete eradication of manual scavenging. He explained the difference between the two Acts. “The earlier Act was from the sanitation perspective and the ministry of housing and poverty alleviation was supervising it. The law did not fix the state’s liability. So, many states didn’t even formulate rules under the Act, claiming their states are free of manual scavenging.” The new Bill looks at manual scavenging from the point of view of restoring human dignity and human rights and talks about rehabilitation and has been drafted by the ministry of social justice and empowerment.

The new Bill was first introduced in Lok Sabha on September 3, last year. Thereafter it was referred to a standing committee, which submitted its report in March, 2013. The present draft of the Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha by Union minister for social justice and empowerment, Mukul Wasnik, on September 3 this session.

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