NAMASTE
SCHEME - POLITY
News:
Recent data from the NAMASTE scheme involving over 3,000 Urban Local Bodies
(ULBs) shows that 92% of the 38,000 workers engaged in manual scavenging and
hazardous cleaning tasks in India’s cities are from Scheduled Caste (SC),
Scheduled Tribe (ST), and Other Backward Class (OBC) communities. This
significant statistic not only underscores the prevalence of caste-based
occupational segregation but also highlights the ongoing risks and challenges
faced by these communities in such dangerous professions
WHAT’S
IN THE NEWS?
NAMASTE
Scheme
- Namaste is a Central Sector
Scheme of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJE)
as a joint initiative of the MoSJE and the Ministry of Housing and
Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
- NAMASTE envisages safety and dignity
of sanitation workers in urban India by creating an enabling ecosystem
that recognizes sanitation workers as one of the key contributors in
operations and maintenance of sanitation infrastructure thereby providing
sustainable livelihood and enhancing their occupational safety through
capacity building and improved access to safety gear and machines.
- Ensure safety and dignity of
sanitation workers in urban India and providing sustainable livelihood and
enhancing their occupational safety through capacity building and improved
access to safety gear and machines.
·
NAMASTE would also aim at providing access
to alternative livelihoods support and entitlements to reduce the
vulnerabilities of sanitation workers and enable them to access self-employment
and skilled wage employment opportunities and break the intergenerationality in
sanitation work.
·
In addition, NAMASTE would bring about a
behavior change amongst citizens towards sanitation workers and enhance demand
for safe sanitation services.
Five
hundred cities (converging with AMRUT cities) will be taken up under this phase
of NAMASTE. The list of cities will be notified at an appropriate time. The
category of cities that will be eligible are given below:
- All Cities and Towns with a
population of over one lakh with notified Municipalities, including
Cantonment Boards (Civilian areas),
- All Capital Cities/Towns of States/
Union Territories (UTs), not covered in 4(i),
- Ten Cities from hill states, islands
and tourist destinations (not more than one from each State).
NAMASTE
Initiative’s Key Outcomes:
- Zero Fatalities: Achieving
no deaths during sanitation work across India.
- Skilled Workforce: Ensuring
all sanitation tasks are handled by properly trained workers.
- Safety Measures: Eliminating
direct contact between sanitation workers and human waste.
- Empowerment of Workers: Organizing
sanitation workers into Self-Help Groups (SHGs), equipping them to manage
their own sanitation enterprises.
- Alternative Livelihoods: Providing
sewer and septic tank sanitation workers with access to different
livelihood options.
- Enhanced Oversight: Strengthening
monitoring and supervisory systems across national, state, and local urban
bodies to ensure the enforcement of safe sanitation practices.
- Awareness Building: Promoting
increased awareness among sanitation service users, encouraging them to
engage certified and skilled sanitation workers.
Manual
Scavenging in India
- Manual scavenging is defined as “the
removal of human excrement from public streets and dry latrines, cleaning
septic tanks, gutters and sewers”.
- In 1993, India banned the employment
of people as manual scavengers (The Employment of Manual Scavengers and
Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993), however, the stigma
and discrimination associated with it still linger on.
- In 2013, the definition of manual
scavengers was also broadened to include people employed to clean septic
tanks, ditches, or railway tracks. The Act recognizes manual scavenging as
a “dehumanizing practice,” and cites a need to “correct the historical injustice
and indignity suffered by the manual scavengers.”
Prevalence
of Manual Scavenging in India
- As per the National Commission for
Safai Karamcharis (NCSK), a total of 631 people have died in the country
while cleaning sewers and septic tanks in the last 10 years.
- 2019 saw the highest number of manual
scavenging deaths in the past five years. 110 workers were killed while
cleaning sewers and septic tanks.
- This is a 61% increase as compared to
2018, which saw 68 cases of such similar deaths.
- Despite the introduction of several
mechanised systems for sewage cleaning, human intervention in the process
still continues.
- As per data collected in 2018, 29,923
people are engaged in manual scavenging in Uttar Pradesh, making it the
highest in any State in India.
Why
is manual scavenging still a concern after so many years?
- A number of independent surveys have
talked about the continued reluctance on the part of state governments to
admit that the practice prevails under their watch.
- Many times, local bodies outsource
sewer cleaning tasks to private contractors. However, many of them
fly-by-night operators, do not maintain proper rolls of sanitation
workers. In case after case of workers being asphyxiated to death, these
contractors have denied any association with the deceased.
- The practice is also driven by caste,
class and income divides. It is linked to India’s caste system where
so-called lower castes are expected to perform this job. It is linked to
India’s caste system where so-called lower castes are expected to perform this
job.
Existing
provisions regarding Manual Labour
- Prevention of Atrocities Act: In
1989, the Prevention of Atrocities Act became an integrated guard for
sanitation workers; more than 90% people employed as manual scavengers
belonged to the Scheduled Caste. This became an important landmark to free
manual scavengers from designated traditional occupations.
- The Prohibition of Employment as
Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013: Superseding
the 1993 Act, the 2013 Act goes beyond prohibitions on dry latrines, and
outlaws all manual excrement cleaning of insanitary latrines, open drains,
or pits.
- Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees
‘Right to Life’ and that also with dignity. This right is available to
both citizens and non-citizens.
Source:
https://thehindu.com/news/national/92-of-workers-cleaning-urban-sewers-septic-tanks-are-from-sc-st-obc-groups/article68697861.ece