SOCIAL – SCHEMES
- Behind the hazardous cleaning deaths of 150 people in 2022 and 2023, a social audit of 54 of which the Ministry of Social Justice has tabled in Parliament, lies a deleterious business model.
- Local contractors had hired 38; only five were on a government payroll.
Progress on this front has lagged despite the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013, court orders, Swachh Bharat advisories, and the 2023 National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) scheme.
Only ₹14 crore has been released so far under the NAMASTE scheme, insufficient to mechanise sewer cleaning in even one major city
A 2024 Parliament reply said 57,758 workers were engaged in hazardous cleaning nationwide but only 16,791 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits were supplied. Fewer than 14,000 had received health cards and only 837 safety workshops had been conducted in 4,800 urban local bodies.
Access to mechanised desludging vehicles was seen in Odisha and Tamil Nadu has piloted sewer robots in Chennai to clean over 5,000 manholes.
Experts also flagged a near-complete lack of data on rural sanitation workers.
