The Clean India drive must include concern for Safai Karmacharis living with discrimination and deprivation in everyday life since generations and struggling to live a life of equality and dignity. In spite of Constitutional mandate, laws, programmes and dedicated institutions, their condition has not improved to the desired extent. The Safai Karmacharis in Odisha are in the lowest ladder of the Hindu caste order and discriminated both vertically and horizontally in social life along with resourcelessness. While they customarily clean the roads, colonies, drains and all public and private places, their minimum wage, working hours, protection from occupational health hazards, social security, land and housing are still a distance dream. A vast majority of them have no homestead land to securely construct a house and they have been staying over Government land since generations though the State and Central Governments have made provisions to ensure homestead land for every family as a matter of fundamental human right for every citizen. Many of the families living in distress have been struggling to get a piece of land, but it is unfortunate that our system of government and policymakers have paid scant attention to the issues of the Safai Karmachris, who are victims of historical injustice.
Choudwar emerged as an industrial township in early 1950s with Kalinga Tubes, Odisha Textiles, Kalinga Refectories, Titagarh Paper Mills and later on libra Carpet, Indian Charge Chrome, UMSl, a pig iron factory and numbers of small factories as source of employment for many including the Safai Karmacharis who came from Andhra Pradesh and adjoining locality of Cuttack district. It is disappointing to note that the local industries are not doing any welfare work for the slums and colonies of Safai Karmachris as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme.
Kapaleswar Basti with 120 families and other hamlets in the Choudwar Municipality of Cuttack district are home to Safai Karmacharis living there since two generations. They are instrumental in maintaining cleanness, sanitation and health of the people of the locality including colonies, offices, schools, hospitals and nursing homes, but they are deprived of the basic amenities despite existence of Government offices like those of Block, Tehsil and Collector at short distances.
The Safai Karmacharis are found at Kapaleswar, Teluguhadisahi, Talabazarsahi and Wards 1, 3, 13, 17 and 35 of the Choudwar Municipality in segregated hamlets of temporary polythene sheets, half-made thatched houses without proper living space for the families of five to seven members. There are no basic amenities such as drinking water, sanitary facility, drainage and electricity. Many eligible elder people are not enlisted for old age pension. Many families having BPl cards, job cards for MGNRGS are not availing their due entitlement despite repeated appeal to local authorities. Almost all families face the problem of availing caste certificates from tehsil office where land records are seen as a strong evidence for caste proof. This has serious implications on children’s education and in accessing other entitlements.
All family members, adults, youths, women and children are engaged as Safai Karmacharis along with sanitary work. They also take up drum beating and other ordinary manual jobs to make a livelihood. The privatisation of sanitary work in the absence of regulation and trade unionisation encourage the monopoly of private contractors in fixing the wage and working hours. The Safai Karmachris are deprived of social security and healthcare which they deserve for their most hazardous occupation under labour laws. They are also not provided cleaning devices and first-aid box for their safety while engaged in cleaning safety tanks which cause death of many of them.
As part of national commitment in line with the Constitution of India along with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), there is a special panel since 1993, the National Commission for Safai Karmacharis (NCSK), and the National Safai Karmachari Finance and Development Corporation (NSKFDC) since 1997 with a share capital of Rs 600 crore to look into the specific issues of scavenger communities. The NSKFDC has schemes for skill development, study loan and rehabilitation programmes for self-employment with loan at lower rate of interest and subsidy. The Odisha SC and ST Development Finance Cooperative Corporation (OSFDC) is the nodal agency in the State for implementation of such programmes for the Safai Karmacharis. In States like Karnataka, there is also State commission for Safai Karmacharis under the provision of the State Act to ameliorate their condition. The various public sector corporations like the Indian Oil Corporation, the Steel Authority of India and private corporates are also contributing out of their CSR funds to the NSKFDC for rehabilitation work.
The prohibition of employment as manual scavengers and their rehabilitation Act 2013 are in place to abolish manual scavenging as a correction of historical injustice and indignity and to establish right to live with dignity as fundamental right under the Constitution. There is a provision in Section 13(1) (c) of the Act for allocation of residential plots and financial assistance for construction of houses or a ready build house to Safai Karmacharis and sanitary workers.
As per the rule, there should be a State-level and district-level survey committees under the chairmanship of district Collectors with representatives of community including women, but the Odisha Government has not yet implemented it.
Along with provision in the Odisha Government land Settlement Act 1962, since last ten years the Revenue Department has been implementing a scheme, Vasundhara, to ensure homestead land for BPl families having no homestead land in rural areas. The Union Ministry of Rural Development has made provisions under the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) to provide homestead land to the prospective beneficiaries by purchasing private land if there is no Government land available. But many well-intended schemes are inaccessible due to bureaucratic hurdles for the Safai Karmacharis, who are mostly illiterate and unorganised in rural areas and their counterpart in urban areas also suffer even though there are similar provision under the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) for urban poor including Safai Karmacharis, says Tapan Samal, an activist with the Ambedker lohia Bichar Manch, and Jugal Kishore Ranjit of the Dalit Adhikar Sangathan.
The Safai Karmachris at Kapaleswar have made their representation to the local Tehsildar and met the Municipality Executive Officer and the District Magistrate. For last three years, they have been running from pillar to post to get a piece of homestead land. The Kapaleswar homestead land issue was taken up by Sisir Tripathy of the Odisha Jami Adhikar Abhijan (OJAA) and Pratap Jena, president of Sradha, a local organisation, along with Prasant Mallick and Kamakshya Prasad Nayak of the Odisha Dalit Adhikar Manch (ODAM) with a petition to the NCSK and the National Commission for Scheduled Caste for intervention. But it is unfortunate that the genuine rights of the poor citizens have been purposefully ignored. The local MlA and the Collector were requested by local people for intervention, but there was no result. The NCSK in a letter to the State’s ST and SC Development Department and the NCSC have sought a factual report, but though three years have passed the poor people have still been visiting Government offices at regular intervals with hope of getting homestead land.
The Choudwar Municipality is on the verge of expanding its jurisdiction by including the periphery areas and evicting the so-called unauthorised slums like Kapaleswar Basti. The people in the hamlets are under a regular threat of eviction without a viable alternative to stay, says Prakash Gochhayat, a leading youth of Kapaleswar. How long the man-made systems will continue to deny people their basic human rights while their services are shamelessly used by the society!
(The writer, a rights activist, can be reached at ojaabbsr@gmail.com)