'Rehabilitate city manual scavengers in Civil Defence'

New Delhi: The Delhi government’s monitoring committee has directed the district magistrates to conduct surveys in their respective districts and prepare a list of people involved in manual scavenging. The government has also empowered the assistant district magistrates to try the cases of deaths of the manual scavengers in the last five years under the manual scavenger act and punish the guilty.

Meanwhile, taking a serious view of the recent deaths of manual scavengers in the city, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday directed the officials to identify the persons engaged in manual scavenging and rehabilitate them in Civil Defence corps.

Chairing the first meeting of the state monitoring committee on prohibition of manual scavenging, Mr Kejriwal warned that action will be taken against concerned authorities for reporting zero number of manual scavengers in their jurisdiction if any death occurred during cleaning of septic tank, said a statement. “It was decided in the meeting that if survey report of a district indicates that there are no manual scavenger in the area, then in case of any death during manual cleaning of sewer there, the concerned district magistrate will be held responsible,” the statement said.