The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has made a series of recommendation to the Government of India to eradicate manual scavenging.
NHRC Recommendations to eradicate manual scavenging
- Centre to provide Rs10 lakh loan to manual scavengers’ family members so that they can start some business activity.
- Amount of compensation paid as one time cash assistance for rehabilitation of manual scavengers may be enhanced from Rs40,000 to Rs 1 lakh.
- National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) should monitor the sewer deaths in its reports.
- Accountability must be fixed in case of wrong reporting by the concerned authorities about the number of manual scavengers in any region of the country.
- Broaden the definition of manual scavenging to cover other types of hazardous cleaning or enactment of a new law for it,
- Take strict action against local authorities who employ people as manual scavengers.
- Manual scavengers may be linked to schemes under which they can immediately start earning like MNREGA and revisit to see how their families are doing.
- Officer in the Supervisory level or In charge of the area should submit a declaration to the respective civic body to the effect that the required safety gears are being provided before any person enters the sewer/septic tank.
(Source: Hindustan Times)
