Manual Scavenging Banned Finally

       A Dalit woman doing the dirty job

It has always pained me to see the sight of thousands of people defecating on either side of the railway track if you happen to look outside the running train which passes a big town or city in the morning hours.

The same scene will transform into lush green agricultural field to give you a big relief after you have the city peripheries. But it continues to effect your memory for the dirty scene seen a while ago. I even cannot understand the difficult situation of a woman or a invalid person who has no where to go in the broad day light.

The Lok Sabha passed a long-awaited bill to ban manual scavenging--the clearing of human waste by hand from toilets--on Friday which outlaws employment of scavengers and will provide retraining and help for their families.

With more than 600 million people lacking even basic toilet facilities and being forced to defecate in open,

A 2011 survey by the Central Pollution Control Board showed that just 160 out of nearly 8,000 towns had sewerage systems and sewage treatment plants.

Workers stripped down to their underpants and equipped with just a hoe and a wooden bar can still routinely be seen clambering into the depths of septic tanks and sewers. 

Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh's comment that "there are more temples in the country than toilets" had led to a controversy last year. He had said, "India has a godliness surplus and cleanliness deficit."

It is shame that even in 21st century, we continue to live in 18th. Why it took more than six decades to pass such a bill and stamp out the shame in an independent sovereign  country.