Context: Recently, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has made a series of recommendations to the Centre to eradicate manual scavenging. 
Key highlights of the NHRC recommendations

• The Centre should provide Rs10 lakh loan to manual scavengers’ family members so that they can start some business activity.
• The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) should monitor the sewer deaths in its reports.
• The NHRC recommended expanding the definition of manual scavenging in order to cover other hazardous cleaning, or enacting a new law for hazardous cleaning.
• It also recommended that there should be a penalty to prevent harassment of women manual scavengers and children of manual scavengers.
• NHRC has recommended that manual scavengers may be linked to schemes under which they can immediately start earning like MGNREGA.
• It has further asked that the amount of compensation paid as one time cash assistance for rehabilitation of manual scavengers may be enhanced from Rs 40,000 to Rs 1 lakh.

About Manual Scavenging

• It is defined as “the removal of human excrement from public streets and dry latrines, cleaning septic tanks, gutters and sewers.
• In the past, this referred to the practice of removing excreta from dry latrines.
• However, new modern sanitation technologies brought new forms of manual scavenging work, which include manual and unsafe cleaning of drains, sewer lines, septic tanks and latrine pits.

Reasons and Concerns 

• Scavenging is mostly carried out by a subgroup of the Dalits, an outcast community also known as “untouchables” within India’s ancient system of caste hierarchies.
• “Untouchables” are often impoverished, shunned by society and forbidden from touching Indians of other castes, or even their food.
• Scavenging continues in parts of India largely due to governmental indifference and social prejudice.
• There is a complete absence of planning for maintenance of sewerage, septic tanks, and waste disposal systems in the urban policies made for the city by the state and private companies.
• The number of people killed while cleaning sewers and septic tanks has increased over the last few years. 
• 2019 saw the highest number of manual scavenging deaths in the past five years. 

Government Measures to tackle Manual Scavenging
Legislative

• The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993
• It set imprisonment of up to one year and a fine of Rs 2,000 for pushing a person to manual scavenging.
• Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers(SRMS) 2017 
• It is a successor scheme to NSLRS ( National Scheme for Liberation and Rehabilitation of Scavengers and their Dependents) with the objective to rehabilitate remaining manual scavengers and their dependents in alternative occupations, in a time bound manner.

Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013

• The Act put an end to the practice of any form of manual cleaning, carrying, disposing or handling of human waste.
• The act says the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) would monitor implementation of the Act and enquire into complaints regarding contravention of the provisions of the Act

Amendment Bill  2020  

• The Bill proposes to completely mechanise sewer cleaning, introduce ways for ‘on-site’ protection and provide compensation to manual scavengers in case of sewer deaths.
• It will also ban employing people as manual scavengers without protective gear.

The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK)

• It  was constituted on 12th August, 1994 as a statutory body by an Act of Parliament viz. ‘National Commission for Safai Karamcharis Act, 1993’, for a period of three years i.e. up to 31st March, 1997. 
• However, validity of the Act was extended up to March, 2002, and then up to February, 2004 vide Amendment Acts passed in 1997 and 2001 respectively.

Supreme Court Directions

• The Supreme Court issued directions in 2014 to prevent and control the practice and also to prosecute the offenders.
• It also directed the government to pay a compensation of 10 lakh rupees to the family members of those killed in acts of manual scavenging since 1993.

Constitutional Safeguards

• The right to live with dignity is implicit in the Fundamental Rights guaranteed in Part III of the Constitution. 
• Article 46 of the Constitution, on the other hand, provides that the State shall protect the weaker sections particularly, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.

Road Ahead

• The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan should make expansion of the sewer network a top priority and come up with a scheme for scientific maintenance that will end manual cleaning of septic tanks. 
• The laws should be enforced vigorously to eliminate manual scavenging in its entirety.
• There  should be  trials and testing of protective gears and provisions for better healthcare facilities, insurance cover, pension plans and regulations on preventive and social medicine education for the manual scavengers.