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| A sanitation workers' colony in Ahmedabad |
In a glaring revelation, a recent Indian Institute of
Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) research paper, “An Assessment of Livelihood and
Educational Status of Sanitation Workers in Ahmedabad, Gujarat”, by Ashish
Mishra, Indraraj Dodiya and Navdeep
Mathur, has found that only 36 per cent of the Valmiki families send their
children to school. As for the rest, in order to support their family, “they eventually
drop out”. The report further says, “Of these, 48 per cent have joined casual
sanitation work and others do cleaning work in houses near their own.”
The study also shows that just 44 per cent of families want
to provide education to girls. However, the researchers believe, “While this by
no means is a high number, nevertheless, despite all the
hardships/discriminations that the Valmiki community has to endure, almost half
of them do view schooling and education of girls as important. This data
therefore underscores a positive trend and one that the state government can
use to further promote education for girls in the Valmiki community.”
The researchers conducted a survey of 25 neighborhoods and five
zones of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). A total of 50 sanitation
workers were also interviewed, and through them the researchers sought to
understand the condition of their families. “What was immediately notable was
that there is a high incidence of death among men due to workplace-related
injuries that has led to a rise in the number of widows and therefore a rise in
women-headed households”, the researchers underscore.
The Valmiki community constitutes 2.5 per cent of the total
population of Gujarat. More than 80 thousand families are involved in cleaning sewage
drains and manually removing human excreta, besides sweeping roads. “Needless
to say, that the majority of sanitation workers belong to the Valimiki
community”, the researchers underscore, adding, “Sanitation workers can be
categorised as permanent, temporary, daily wage workers and rag pickers.
Workers who complete 3 years or 720 working days under the AMC are registered
as permanent workers. Those who do not fulfill such criteria but are registered
with local authorities are slotted as temporary workers.”
Housing: The researchers say, “Most of the houses in the
Valmiki-dominated neighbourhoods are built in clusters and on government land. The
houses are made of mud, wood and bamboo; plastic sheets have been used to cover
the roofs. Most families do not have a toilet in their homes nor do they have
running water. They either use a communal toilet or are forced to use open
spaces. They also either have access to a communal water supply or purchase
from a private provider. In each area there are schools, but most of the children
either do not go to school or drop out at the primary level. Those who drop out
of school usually get involved in cleaning work.”
The researchers regret that though there is a programme
called ‘Ambedkar Awas Yojana’ started by the social welfare department of the
Gujarat government where the government builds housing facilities for the
sanitation worker community”, “this scheme has reportedly had a negative impact
as the government builds houses specifically demarcated on the basis of caste,
leading to ghettoization of the lower caste, sanitation-worker community.”
Wages: Coming to wages, the researchers say, “Most of the contract
workers are relatively inexperienced and untrained and enter the sewer for
emergency cleaning work, as compared with permanent municipal staff. For this
they receive Rs 100 per day. It was found that 38 per cent of all the workers interviewed
do not receive full payment. Additionally, it has been found that widows who
are offered work as compensation, after the death of a relative, in most cases
do not receive full wages. Fifty two per cent of the workers do not get
provident fund, gratuity, medical facilities, insurance and other facilities.”
Without sufficient income, “88 per cent of the families are not
saving money in a bank or through insurance schemes. Of the 50 families, only six
save money (four in bank and two send money to their villages). Half of the
families at some point or another have been forced to borrow money. Of those, eight
per cent borrowed money from their relatives, 44 per cent from AMC, 44 per cent
from moneylenders, four per cent from loan contractors and 16 per cent from the
Provident Fund. Loan that families take a longer time to repay have a higher
interest rate which means that approximately 25 per cent of their income goes
into repaying loans.”
Health: Coming to the health situation, the researchers report that
15 deaths were recorded in the first seven months of 2010 and one person became
blind while working inside a manhole. “The major cause of death was suffocation
from poisonous gases inside the manhole that also caused blindness in others.
Nine persons died of poisonous gases, three during accidents, two because of
TB, one due to heart attack and one committed suicide. The type of compensation
that they received included five dependents getting jobs in the municipal
corporation, six receiving jobs and cash compensation, and one individual receiving
just cash. Four families did not receive any compensation,“ the researchers
underline.
The researchers further say that since sanitation workers
and particularly manhole workers are exposed to highly toxic and poisonous
substances and gases, they are prone to health hazards and diseases. “They
spend about 25 per cent of their income on medical expenses. Since their work
includes sweeping and cleaning, they are prone to various diseases such as TB, asthma,
cough, backache and infections of the respiratory tract.”
They cite a Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai,
which carried out a study of manual scavengers in Gujarat in September 2006.
The report states that “Ninety percent of all manual scavengers have not been
provided proper equipment to protect them from faeces-borne illnesses”. This
includes safety equipment like gloves, masks, boots and/or brooms. In 2006,
Gujarat High Court directed the government to form a safety committee. The
purpose was to monitor, use safety equipment and implement high court directives.
“However, 90 per cent of workers are not getting safety equipment till date”,
they point out.
The survey suggests that thirty two per cent of respondents said
their relatives who were also sanitation workers had died from such diseases as
cancer, tuberculosis and asthma. ”
In some cases women workers were also
expected to remove human excreta without taking any precautions and suffered
from various types of illnesses. An RTI application was filed to gather
information about the committee being formed at the state, district and
municipal or nagarpalika level. It was found that in four years (2006-2010),
only two meetings were organised. On analysis of the meeting report, it was
found that manhole workers were not even involved as members of the safety committee
and the focus of the discussions, between District Authorities and Municipal
Corporation, was on equipment for drainage cleaning”, the researchers say.
Awareness: Despite these issues, the researchers found that 94 per cent
of workers’ families were not aware about the various illnesses that they could
contract because of their work. Further, “98 per cent were not aware that
lifting of black soil is prohibited and 88 per cent were not aware that
entering the manhole is prohibited. Additionally, 50 per cent were not aware
that availability and access to basic facilities at the work place such as
clean drinking water and toilet is mandatory and something that they can demand
from the government. They were also not aware about such central and state
government schemes as the Public Distribution System.”
Neither were the workers’ families aware of benefits that
they have a right to avail from the social welfare department. “In fact, 48 per
cent are not aware about widow pension. In a 2003 report by the Comptroller and
Auditor-General, which was among the documents before the Gujarat High Court,
it was observed that the National Scheme of Liberation and Rehabilitation of
Scavengers and their dependents launched in 1992 had failed to achieve its
objectives even after 10 years of its implementation involving investments of
more than Rs. 600 crore. The CAG found that much of the allotted fund was
either unspent or underutilized."
In January 2007, another scheme was launched, the Self-Employment
Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS), with the objective of
rehabilitating 3.42 lakh manual scavengers and their dependents by March, 2009.
Despite these two schemes, workers who still clean up black soil as well as
their dependents (irrespective of their income) are yet to be provided
assistance for rehabilitation under any central government or state government
scheme. The main components of the scheme are skill training and financial
assistance (loan and subsidy) for self-employment.
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