Let's Raise a Stink Over Manual Scavenging

Dignity has no price. Cleanliness has no caste. The least we can do in an inequitable and unjust world is to ensure that no one has to carry our dirty pitcher. Despite the ban, manual scavenging still prevails in the state, raising a stink only when those condemned to carry it out gets asphyxiated. It is time governmental agencies embrace technology to end the dehumanising practice and scrub society's conscience clean

- Mohammad Yacoob & Aknisree Karthik @Bengaluru

The recent death of a 31-year-old labourer, Puttaswamy, who developed breathing issues while cleaning a manhole at Akshaya Nagar in RMC Yard police limits in Bengaluru, has exposed the ineffective implementation of the ban on manual scavenging in the state. While Bengaluru residents write codes for all the world's ills, it is a shame that we cannot fix our societal flaws.

Systemic exclusion from identification of manual scavengers, lack of rehabilitation, institutional neglect, a non-functional 'statutory body' Karnataka State Safai Karmachari Commission, and lack of political will to implement the ban are some of the major reasons that experts point out for continuation of the inhuman practice.

Safai Karmachari Kavalu Samithi Karnataka (SKKS) is a community-based organisation advocating the rights and dignity of sanitation workers across Karnataka since 2010. SKKS state convener KB Obalesha laments that the manual scavenging practice, solely affecting the Dalit community, continues due to the state government's failure to fulfil its constitutional and statutory obligations.