Hanumantharayappa, a pourakarmika from Garani gram panchayat in Tumakuru district, has not received his monthly wage of ₹3,000 for the past 10 months. With a wife and three children to feed, he has been forced to enter a profession that has been banned under the law — he has become a manual scavenger who cleans soak pits to make a living.
He is not the only one.
Many safai karmacharis, working in rural areas of the district, are being forced to take up the occupation owing to meagre wages and irregular payments. However, government officials deny that the practice exists in the district.
Most of the gram panchayats, citing lack of funds, do not pay the minimum wages of ₹12,200 per month to safai karmacharis, as specified by the State government. They are paid anywhere between ₹3,000 and ₹6,000 a month, according to K.B. Obalesh, member of the Karnataka State Manual Scavenging Monitoring Committee. Some gram panchayats pay a month’s wages once in three months, and keep the remaining two months’ wages pending. In some cases, it goes up to 10 months. “In such a scenario, pourakarmikas are forced to engage in manual scavenging by cleaning soak pits to feed their families,” said Mr. Obalesh.
“My salary of ₹3,000 per month has been pending for the past 10 months and hence I am forced to clean soak pits to get two meals a day for my wife and three children,” Mr. Hanumantharayappa told The Hindu. He earns ₹4,000 by cleaning four soak pits of toilets in a month.
Despite the nature of the work, officials refuse to register them as manual scavengers.
When Mr. Hanumantharayappa went to the panchayat development officer (PDO) to give a self-declaration form stating that he was a manual scavenger, the official refused to take his application. “He told me to leave Garani gram panchayat if I wanted to declare myself as a manual scavenger,” said Mr. Hanumantharayappa.
Member of Madhugiri sub-divisional manual scavenging vigilance committee, Siddagangaiah, said that officials hesitated to show that their area has manual scavengers fearing legal tussles. According to him, 50 safai karmacharis were working as manual scavengers in 39 gram panchayats in Madhugiri taluk. Their work included cleaning sewage drains as well as faeces lying on roadsides, without the aid of gloves or masks. Although they wanted to register themselves as manual scavengers, the officers refused to do so, he claimed. “There is manual scavenging in all the villages of the 10 taluks of Tumakuru district,” Mr. Siddagangaiah said.
According to Mr. Obalesh, it costs between ₹800 and ₹1,500 to employ sewer jetting machines to clean soak pits, and the machines sometimes failed to clean the pits properly. Only urban local bodies in the district had one or two machines, while the gram panchayats did not, leading to people hiring manual scavengers to clean the soak pits illegally.
Mr. Obalesh pointed out the huge caste disparity in those taking up the work — according to him, 99% of safai karmacharis in Tumakuru district belonged to Scheduled Castes.
Deputy Commissioner K.P. Mohan Raj said that stringent action would be taken against those who hired safai karmacharis for manual scavenging.
CEO of Tumakuru zilla panchayat K.G. Shantharam said that if the safai karmachari wants to register himself or herself as manual scavenger and if the PDO refuses to, they can approach the tahsildar of the respective taluk.
Wages of pourakarmikas do not reach them
In Tumakuru district, only pourakarmikas working under the Tumakuru City Corporation get the full minimum wage, while those in the other nine urban local bodies in the district do not.
President of the Safai Karmachari Kaval Samiti S.H. Chandrappa demanded that the government regularise the services of pourkarmikas working in urban local bodies and issue them identity cards and health cards. General secretary of the Tumakuru district Pourakarmikara Sanga N.K. Subramanya told The Hindu that although the contractors deducted an amount for Provident Fund from the wages, many a time it was not deposited into their PF accounts. He alleged that sometimes panchayat development officers and gram panchayat presidents were also involved in the siphoning of wages.
Pourakarmika of Chikkanayakanahalli Town Municipal Council Varadappa told The Hindu, “I get paid ₹6,000 once in three months, and wages for 26 days of the month.”
“If we demand our full wages, the contractor will throw us out of work and bring in people from Tiptur to replace us,” said widow Jayamma from Gubbi gram panchayat.
Chairman of the Karnataka State Safai Karmachari Commission M.R. Venkatesha told The Hindu that he had spoken to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on regularising the services and a meeting will be held next week in Bengaluru to discuss the demands and problems of safai karmacharis. Deputy Commissioner K.P. Mohan Raj promised to direct contractors to pay minimum wages to them.
