Social Justice: As many as 389 people died in the country while manually cleaning sewers and septic tanks between 2015 and 2019, said the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Ramdas Athawale said FIRs have been registered against 266 people for engaging people in hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks that resulted in fatalities.
Of the 210 manual scavengers who died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks in the last three years, compensation has been paid to their families in 165 cases, said Athawale.
He further informed the house that 66,692 manual scavengers have been identified so far by municipalities and gram panchayats across 17 states of the country. In 2019, a national survey was conducted in 194 districts of 18 states which identified 48,345 manual scavengers till January 31st 2020.
According to a report by the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, 2019 saw the highest number of cases between 2014 and 2019, with 110 deaths. The report showed that there had been 68 deaths in 2018, 93 in 2017, 48 in 2016, and 57 in 2015. These cases were reported from 18 states and union territories (UT), while 13 states and UTs submitted “nil reports”.
Read this interview in which Bezwada Wilson—a crusader against manual scavenging—talks about the need to build a Dalit-led grassroots movement to liberate the community from this practice.