Chennai: Even after three years of its enactment, the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 is serving little purpose as authorities tasked with enforcing the law show no commitment, according to experts.
On Tuesday, four persons engaged by a popular hotel chain to clean a tank died after inhaling toxic fumes. The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK), which is the Central agency tasked with monitoring the state governments’ implementation of the law, told DC that they have received report regarding the deaths.
“The death is down to negligence by the local authority which is the Collector and the municipal corporation,” said Lata Omprakash Mahato, NCSK member.
“It is an embarrassment that two, three years after the Act, there is zero awareness on its provisions and penalties. Poor people are always the ones to suffer due to injustice,” she said.
Samuel Raj, general secretary, Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front, said the way Chennai corporation went about enumerating scavengers was itself a “sham”.
Change India’s A. Narayanan, who has filed PILs in the Madras high court on the need to abolish manual scavenging and rehabilitation of workers, told DC that even Collectors were unaware of certain legal provisions.
With three of the four dead belonging to the Scheduled Castes, it is likely that charges will be framed against the hoteliers under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
City authorities told DC that they will “take action” after receiving the death report from police.
