The State government will conduct re-survey and identify manual scavengers across the State, in an effort to eradicate the practice completely, said Rakesh Kumar K., Commissioner for the Social Welfare Department.
Speaking at a two-day State-level workshop on ‘Strengthening of rehabilitation schemes for identified manual scavengers’, which was jointly organised by the Department of Social Welfare and Center for the Study of Marginalized Communities at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, on Wednesday, he said, “Including Ballari and Yadgir, 10 districts have reported that there are no manual scavengers in their district limits. However, since manual scavenging is a criminal offence and concerned district officers can be punished in connection with it, for the fear of punishment, many district officers are hiding the data and have declared their districts as a manual scavenger-free districts. Therefore, a re-survey of manual scavengers is needed.”
“Despite the complete abolition of manual scavenging in the State, it is still in existence in some districts. There is no 100% underground drainage (UGD) system in the State. Most of the latrines are connected to the open drainage and this is cleaned manually,” he said.
