CM seeks report on delay in meeting of manual scavenging monitoring panel

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government, in its initial inquiry, has found that the delay in transfer of files by senior officials resulted in a delay in the first meeting of the state-level monitoring committee to end manual scavenging from being held. Eventually, the first-ever meeting was held on Monday.

Later, CM Arvind Kejriwal directed the Social Welfare Department to submit the reason behind the delay. ‘There have been a lot of delays in the transfer files in the matter which has lead the confusion within the team and it got delayed,” said a source in the government.

“The Delhi government has also made an SOP on the sensitisation of the manual scavengers, which is with the Urban Development department for the last three months, and it has not come into play. The ministerial-level clearance was done but the file was delayed intentionally,” the source added.

According to the government, the SOP has all the techniques of sensitisation and also rules for the private owners on the security of the manual scavengers.

However, other senior officials rejected the allegations and said that they followed all the procedures of file transfer.

Earlier this week, Delhi Social Welfare minister Rajendra Pal Gautam had said, “In case of death of an individual entering a sewer line or septic tank, the person-in-charge of the cleaning work will face charges under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC and not 304A (causing death by negligence).”

While imprisonment under Section 304A is for a maximum of two years, a person can be jailed for up to ten years if found guilty under Section 304.

Committees of the kind that met in Delhi on Monday are mandated to meet once every six months under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act. Kejriwal expressed his displeasure that though the current committee was formed in December 2017, it met for the first time only on Monday.

During the meeting, he asked Gautam, the committee's chairman, to investigate why meetings had not been held so far and submit a report in one week.