‘Eradication of manual scavenging’ campaign reaches Capital

BHUBANESWAR: With a nationwide call for total eradication of manual scavenging practice, National Maila Mukti Yatra organised by Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan (RGA) started from Bhopal on November 30 this year, reached the State capital on Thursday. A group of 60 RGA volunteers conducted a procession in the city to make aware the manual scavengers to leave the practice.

Through the campaign in the State, Garima Abhiyan had organised community meetings in Baleswar and Cuttack. “We have identified 130 workers in Baleswar and around 300 in Cuttack those who are still engaged in the manual scavenging practice like clearing septic tank, dry toilets and railway tracks,” said RGA member Sameer Tawane.

According to the Census of India 2011, there are still 7, 94,390 dry latrines in the country where the human excreta are cleaned up by humans and out of that 28,983 dry latrines existed in Odisha where manual scavenging practice is continued, said the RGA member.

The practice is completely violating Human Rights, ‘The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993’ and other relevant legislations, the members added.

The organisation claimed that they have successfully eradicated the inhuman practice in many locations of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra and liberated more than 1,000 dalit women (manual scavengers) from the inhuman practice. After Bhubaneswar, the Yatra would reach Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, and Haryana with covering 200 districts of 18 States of the country.