BMC to recover cost from agencies through property tax

By Tehelka Editorial, www.tehelka.com   October 18th, 2014

 

Occupational hazard Sanitary workers are often exposed to deadly diseases. Photo: Vijay Pandey 

In a unique address to the nation on 2 October — Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary — Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his commitment to devote 100 hours every year to sweeping the floor, picking up the waste and dusting his windows. He also urged everybody to do the same so that Indian cities can compete with those in the West. Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti went to the extent of pledging to devote 300 hours annually to the ‘Swachh Bharat’ (Clean India) mission.

When the politicians were celebrating voluntarism, those who spend long hours every day cleaning our cities were conveniently forgotten. No one spoke about how they contribute to keeping the country clean despite facing untouchability and discrimination.

To meet global standards of cleanliness, India needs more than voluntary action. It needs to get rid of the ageold stigma associated with the work of cleaning. And it needs to ensure competitive wages, adequate safety gear and decent healthcare facilities for those who do that for a living.

Very few households in the metros segregate waste into recyclable, biodegradable and -biodegradable bins. That is mostly done by grossly underpaid, low-caste migrant workers who collect the waste from every house, or by ragpickers. The contribution of ragpickers and sanitary workers to waste management is immense, but the municipal bodies employ only a few of them on a permanent basis. For instance, in New Delhi, most sanitary workers work on a daily wage without any job security. Many have worked every day for up to 15 years, earning only a third of the wages they would have got as permanent employees.

Moreover, the municipal bodies are increasingly outsourcing the job of cleaning to contractors who are likely to employ children at half the minimum wages. Ragpickers comprise the fourth largest section of child labourers in New Delhi, says a study by the National Labour Institute.