57 million more toilets needed to end manual scavenging

iNew Delhi, March 11 : India needs 57,847,217 more hygienic toilets to counter the practice of manual scavenging, attributed mainly to use of dry latrines, especially in rural areas, the government said Thursday. The practice is still rampant in many parts of the country despite a law abolishing it.

Around 23 states and all union territories have adopted the Employment of Manual Scavengers and (Prohibition) Act of 1993, which abolishes the age-old practice in which mostly Dalits clean faeces and carcasses with their bare hands.

"Two states, namely, Manipur and Mizoram, have reported that there are no dry latrines and the states are scavengers free. Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh have enacted their own act. Jammu and Kashmir is yet to adopt the act," Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply on the status of adoption and implementation of the law.

Although no fresh survey has been conducted to assess the implementation of the act, Selja presented some alarming figures that indicated that India lags far behind its target of constructing around 120 million toilets. It has constructed only 63,125,445 hygienic toilets in the total of 30 states and union territories as of March 8, 2010.

The minister said only the Uttar Pradesh government had reported 32,314 prosecutions under the act since April 2002, but fine was imposed on offenders only in 5,206 cases, just a sixth of the total cases.

Selja added that the central government's Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), which aims at ensuring sanitation facilities in rural areas and eradicating the practice of open defecation was "a demand driven project" implemented in 593 districts out of around 626 districts in the country.

The TSC is implemented by the department of drinking water supply while the rural development ministry has no data on dry latrines in rural households, Selja said.

"However, all households with dry latrines are required to be covered under the TSC for construction of individual household latrines," she said.