CUTTACK: Eight years after the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) chalked out a rehabilitation programme for ragpickers to improve their livelihood besides upskilling them, the plan is yet to translate into action.
The ragpickers, mostly belonging to the unorganised labour class community, play a vital role in maintaining cleanliness in the cities, towns and rural areas by collecting solid waste regularly. However, they are often stigmatised and humiliated for their job.
Considering their plight, the civic body, in accordance with the guidelines of the Swachh Bharat Mission and Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules-2011, had in 2016 planned the ragpickers’ rehabilitation programme and initiated steps to maintain cleanliness in the city by involving them in the sanitation drive.
The civic body had decided to issue identity cards linked to their respective Aadhaar cards. This apart, the ragpickers were to also be supplied with gloves, cleanliness jackets besides being sensitised on proper handling of waste. The CMC had also planned to provide health care services to their families by organising health camps. To include them in the mainstream, the municipal corporation had also planned to make the ragpickers’ jobs more remunerative by including them in Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM) and also upskill them for more employment opportunities.
The civic body had also convened a meeting with around 100 ragpickers in December 2016 and issued temporary identity cards to 45 of them.
However despite all the plans, the programme is yet to materialise into reality even after eight years. Neither has any step been taken to implement other welfare programmes for them nor have any survey been conducted to cover the remaining ragpickers under the rehabilitation plan. This apart, there is no information on the 45 ragpickers who had been provided identity cards. CMC commissioner Anam Charan Patra could not be contacted for a comment on the matter.