National Commission not happy with state’s measures for manual scavengers

Manhar Valji Bhai Zala, Chairman, National Commission for Safai Karamcharis, along with its member Jagadish Hiremani, participated in a review meeting in the Secretariat where heads of various state government departments connected with manual scavengers participated.

After the meeting, Manhar said, “According to the Safai Karamchari rules, a state-level committee had to be formed and they should meet regularly. Though a committee was formed in the state the committee did not meet even once.”

Manhar said that in the review meeting officials submitted details of various schemes and projects undertaken by the state government. The officials also presented the data on manual scavenging, but the information is not accurate.

“State claims that there are only 62 persons involved in manual scavenging in Chennai district but according to the members of Safai Karamcharis association the number is increasingly high. We have doubts in the data provided by the state and so we have directed it to do a resurvey on the number of manual scavengers in six districts of Tamil Nadu, including Chennai,” he said.

He also said that the Safai Karamcharis Act of 1993 provides Rs 10 lakh compensation for manual scavengers who died during their work but in the state majority of the families of the men who have died during the work have not received the compensation amount. “Through the interaction with members of manual scavengers association we came to know that compensation amount of Rs 10 lakh was not given to many of the families. We have directed the concerned departments to disburse the pending due within one month,” said Manhar.

He further said that minimum wages for Safai Karamcharis is Rs 642 per day, but the highest wage given in the state for them is just Rs 362 per day. “We have directed the Corporations and other local bodies to form a committee in two months and to hike the wages,” the chairman said.