BENGALURU: Noting that provisions of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, have not been implemented, the Karnataka High Court on Wednesday issued various directions, including one to the State Government, asking it to prepare a comprehensive database on insanitary latrines across the state, and to note details about their conversion or demolition.
“The social welfare department has relied upon data published by the government of India, which shows there are 53,15,715 insanitary latrines in the state. This indicates a failure on the part of local authorities (municipality, panchayat and Railways) and the State Government has to implement the provisions,” a division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S Vishwajith Shetty said. The government has to submit a list of steps taken for rehabilitation of manual scavengers, it added.
The bench passed the order after hearing PILs filed by the Karnataka High Court Legal Services Committee and All India Council of Trade Unions (AICTU), seeking direction to the state and Central governments to implement the Act, and also directions issued by the Supreme Court in the case of Safai Karmachari Andolan and others.
The Legal Services Committee recalled an incident that took place on January 7, 2018, where three manual scavengers had died of suffocation while cleaning a pit inside an apartment complex in Bengaluru. The bench asked the state to direct local authorities to immediately ascertain the requirement of sanitary community latrines within their jurisdictions, and construct them.
The bench also directed the State Government to initiate an awareness campaign to eliminate open defecation and ensure that all local bodies comply with the obligation. The government should take help from NGOs and the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority to conduct the campaign in rural areas, the bench said, while asking the State to file a compliance report on or before January 30. The bench noted that families of manual scavengers should be eligible to receive cash assistance of `40,000, immediately after their identification.