Govt has duty to avoid manual scavenging deaths, says Stalin

CHENNAI: Chief Minister M K Stalin on Monday expressed serious concerns over the manual scavenging deaths in the State and said that the government has the duty to prevent such deaths.

Stalin also instructed the State Municipal Administration Department to implement a special entrepreneurship scheme devised to prevent manual scavenging in four months and cautioned that stringent action would be initiated against officials for manual scavenging deaths in future.

Chairing a special review meeting of the Municipal Administration and Water Supply (MAWS) on the efforts taken to prevent manual scavenging deaths in the State, Stalin said, "Though Tamil Nadu is a developed State on various socioeconomic indicators, it lags behind on one index alone. It is the number of deaths happening during cleaning of septic tanks. It is extremely worrisome. This government has the duty and responsibility to prevent it."

Remarking that they must ponder over why the State, which is a pioneer in various sectors, including industries and information technology, was unable to change the appalling situation, the Chief Minister described "manual cleaning of underground drainage and septic tanks" as an "insult to humanity" and said that a review of manual scavenging deaths revealed that most of them were happening in urban areas.

Referring to the MoU signed between Chennai Metro Water and Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in February last to mechanise the cleaning of UGD and septic tanks, the Chief Minister cited the Rs 100 crore budgetary allocation for Ambedkar Tholil Munnodigal Thittam to transform people engaged in manual scavenging into entrepreneurs and asked the additional chief secretary of MAWS department to fully implement the entrepreneurship scheme covering Chennai in four months.

Frame guidelines to prevent manual scavenging death

He also instructed the MAWS and rural development departments to not wait for the implementation of the new schemes and work to ensure that no manual scavenging deaths happen in the rest of the state. Pointing to discrepancy in distribution of compensation and initiating criminal action on manual scavenging deaths, the Chief Minister said that on some instances, cases are booked under IPC and in some cases under Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers Act, which reveals that guidelines have not been framed for handling manual scavenging deaths. Asking the department to frame guidelines to prevent manual scavenging deaths, Stalin said that awareness must be raised among the workers and people engaging such workers.

The CM also warned that stringent action would be initiated against officials concerned in case of manual scavenging deaths happening due to non-adherence to guidelines and preventive measures.