5 years of Swachh Bharat: More toilets but no end to manual scavenging

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the ambitious Clean India programme, popularly known as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, on October 2, 2014. How successful has it been? What targets did it miss?

Exactly five years back, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) to ramp up the cleanliness levels in the country and make towns and villages free from the nuisance of open defecation and waste. Since then — even its critics admit — the SBM has tasted success as a well-funded, centrally sponsored scheme. 
 

On the one hand, the Centre made an extra effort to mobilise funds. On the other hand, experts feel, the scheme focused excessively on toilet construction and while other areas took a back seat.
 

But most importantly, the scheme has had limited success in uprooting the practice of manual scavenging, added activists. 

The SBM was launched with two variants — rural, to be implemented by the drinking water and sanitation ministry (now Jal Shakti), and urban, to be implemented by the housing and urban affairs ministry. One hundred million toilets have been constructed under the former in the past years; another 6 million have been built under the latter. The Centre has spent more than Rs 50,000 crore; the states together have spent a little less. From 12.6 million toilets constructed in 2015-16, the rate peaked in 2017-18, when more than 30 million toilets were constructed. 
 

The central government gradually increased funds to the scheme. It also levied a new cess, above the service tax (before the goods and services tax was introduced), and collected nearly Rs 20,000 crore from it — 40 per cent of the overall funds spent by the Centre.
 

But amid all these achievements lies a big failure: The centuries-old practice of manual scavenging is still rampant across the length and breadth of the country. According to official data, there are more than 14,500 officially recognised and listed people in the country, whose sole job is to manually lift human excreta from dry latrines. This data is maintained by the social justice and empowerment ministry, as all manual scavengers belong to the Scheduled Castes.
 

The NITI Aayog found nearly 40,000 working manual scavengers in 2018. The government officially put the number at 54,000. 

Bezwada Wilson, activist and leader of the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), an advocacy group working towards ending the practice of manual scavenging, puts the number of manual scavengers at 160,000, according to their survey.
 

He said that though the SBM had begun with the PM being vocal about ending the practice, this was never a priority. “The government has not yet identified the number and locations of dry latrines in the country. They keep asking us for the data, but refuse to believe it,” said Wilson. 
 

The 2011 Census put the number of dry latrines at 2.6 million, which are not mapped under the SBM. Wilson also said the celebration on the success of twin-pit latrines — where two pits slowly generate manure from septic tanks over time — has not been implemented in all places where toilets have been built.
 

“Less than half of the constructed toilets are twin pit. And, if there are as many septic tanks as toilets, who is going to empty them (clean then up) after four-five years of their construction?” he said. There are only a few states where manual scavengers are in large numbers: Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Rajasthan contributing nearly 90 per cent of the official ones registered with the government. They are provided the benefits such as one-time cash assistance and help in getting employment. According to data compiled by the government from news articles, 88 people have died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks since 2017.