Scavengers !!!!!!!

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What a shame! (28-01-2007) - Deepak Tiwari

MADHYA PRADESH

Dalits continue to carry human waste on their heads

In Dhana village of Sagar district, Kusumbai steps out of her home at 8 a.m., with a bamboo basket and a metal plate. She is off to collect human waste from the dry latrines in the neighbourhood. Her salary: six rotis a day and Rs 30 a month.
She finishes her rounds by 11.30 a.m., takes a bath and returns to the houses she had visited earlier to collect rotis for her family's lunch. After a meal, she does her household chores and looks after her pigs; pig rearing adds to the family kitty. In the evening, she heads back to the same houses to collect rotis for dinner and breakfast the following day.
Kusumbai is not the only manual scavenger in the state. Radhabai, Kamalabai, Reena, Munni, Sushma, Shantabai, Ramvati, Phulwati, Kiran and others-mostly from the Balmiki, Dhanuk, Methar and Bhangi castes-remove human excreta with a metal plate, sometimes even using their bare hands. The waste goes into the bamboo basket, which is carried to the disposal site.
Strangely, there is no conclusive count on the number of scavengers in the 48 districts of Madhya Pradesh. The ministry of social justice and empowerment says there are 80,000 manual scavengers in the state, second only to Uttar Pradesh, with 1.49 lakh. The National Safai Karmchari Commission puts the figure at 18,000, while the state Human Rights Commission pegs it at 7,000.

However, the most reliable figure seems to be that of Garima Abhiyan, an NGO, which conducted a door-to-door survey of 13 districts and found 2,263 scavengers. "Women comprise 93 per cent of the workforce," says Asif, convener of Garima Abhiyan, which is on a statewide campaign to eradicate scavenging and is a joint petitioner in the Supreme Court on the issue.
The state government, however, in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on August 21, 2004, said that there is a gazette notification that manual scavenging does not exist anywhere in the state and that it is undertaking all possible steps to rehabilitate people engaged in it. Investigations and field visits done by THE WEEK confirmed that there are still many involved in the job.
Kusumbai does not want to speak on the issue, as her roti is at stake; moreover, schemes for rehabilitation of scavengers are only for men. But Dhapubai of village Parda in Neemuch district, says, "We are forced to carry human waste because the society forces us; they do not want to invest in flush latrines." She is ready to kick the job the day she gets an alternative one.
Though the Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj Act 1993 stipulates that all representatives who do not construct flush latrines in their homes within one year of their election could be dismissed, the state government is hesitating to take action. This is because a survey revealed that nearly 75 per cent of panchayat representatives (2,44,954 out of 3,28,767) have not installed them.
"This is a social problem and things will not improve unless the community comes forward," says Asif. His NGO, aided by the community, helped 1,624 villagers in 13 districts leave the job and adopt alternate means of livelihood. In 2002, his team succeeded in persuading scavengers of Bhoransa village in Dewas district to shun the job. And, 26 villagers set fire to their bamboo baskets. Since then, many have joined Garima Abhiyan to press the community to dismantle dry latrines. "We write slogans and drop pamphlets at homes," says Asif, who has often faced opposition for his persistence.