#NewsBytesOriginals: Peering into the dark underbelly of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

On September 9, five young workers died of toxic fumes while cleaning a septic tank at an upscale West Delhi residential complex.

While tragedy and outrage gripped their kin, the incident also highlighted the saga of neglect and exploitation that has come to characterize the story of manual scavengers, even in modern, 21st century India.

It's worth noting here that the deaths might have been avoided had the provisions of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, been followed.

The Act clearly places an obligation on every employer who employs people to clean sewers/septic tanks to provide cleaners with adequate cleaning equipment, the knowledge to operate them, and safety gear, including full-body suits.

Yet, the reality is starkly different from the law.

While the law prohibits the cleaning of sewers and septic tanks without protective gear, over 300 manual-scavenging related deaths were officially reported in India in 2017 - that's almost one sanitation worker a day.

To make matters worse, rehabilitation of manual scavengers is almost unheard of in recent times.

But, that's not all.

A recent survey by the National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation (NSKFDC), covering 121 out of India's 718 districts, counted as many as 53,236 manual scavengers in India - a four-fold increase over the official count of around 13,000 in 2017.

Extrapolate that figure to cover all of India's districts, and you have a problem of colossal proportions.

Indeed, Magsaysay Award-winner Bezwada Wilson's Safai Karmachari Andolan's (SKA) data reflects the same.

According to SKA data, India has 2.6 million dry latrines, 770,000 sewer cleaners, and 36,176 cleaners for the Indian Railways, which happens to be the single largest employer of manual scavengers in the country.

Additionally, SKA notes that over 1,760 manual scavengers have died in the past couple of years.

In June, the Delhi government announced that 200 manual scavengers would be provided with financial help to buy sewer cleaning machines that cost Rs. 38 lakh each.

While that marked at least some effort in the right direction, Modi's Swachh Bharat campaign, that has spent thousands of crores of rupees on advertising, still remains silent about the issue of manual scavenging.

The proof?

A recent RTI filed by The Wire revealed that the Modi government, from 2014 to September 2, 2017, had not released a single penny for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment's 'Self Employment for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers' scheme that aims to rehabilitate manual scavengers.

For comparison, Rs. 226cr was released between 2007 and 2014 for the scheme.

With the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan nearing its fourth anniversary, it's now imperative to ask what it has achieved and where it's headed.

The focus of the scheme, so far, has largely been on building toilets, which is commendable.

However, the NDA government has not, for a moment, stopped to think what that would mean for the throngs of manual scavengers in India.

Indeed, if the rise in number of toilets in India, presuming that it's achieved, isn't accompanied by a proportionate rise in mechanized sewer/septic tank cleaning infrastructure, there will be no relief for the lakhs of manual scavengers in India.

If such is the case, as the current situation indicates, is not the Swachh Bharat scheme complicit in indirect oppression in the name of development?