Welfare schemes to the vulnerable sections of the society
Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Social justice
Why in news?
- The tragic death of six people who entered a septic tank in Tamil Nadu’s Sriperumbudur town is a grim reminder that sanitation remains a low-priority area despite the high political profile of Swachh Bharat.
- Public understanding of the science of managing septic tanks continues to be poor, and the availability of cheap labour to clean these structures has slowed efforts to develop technologies that can safely remove and transport the waste.
- Sanitation thus remains a challenge in thousands of unsewered towns.
- What sets the incident apart from the several instances of people dying of asphyxiation in the tanks is that some of the victims were the owners of the property and not workers.
- Three people collapsed while inspecting their residential septic tank, and others who tried to save them also perished.
- Although workers were not affected in this case, it confirms Tamil Nadu’s abysmal overall record at raising sanitation standards.
Data analysis
- Since 1993, when the first law was passed against manual cleaning, there were at least 144 worker deaths in Tamil Nadu as of November 2018.
- According to official data reported to the Centre for grant of compensation. Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab also fared badly with a cumulative toll of 146 lives lost during that period.
- This is obviously a gross underestimate, since the Safai Karmachari Andolan, which has litigated in the
Supreme Court seeking to aggressively prosecute offenders, contends that septic tank cleaning claimed nearly
1,500 lives between 2014 and 2016. - More reports of deaths continue to come in.
Constitutional Provision
- Every death of a manual worker represents a crime, since the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 makes the use of such labour to clean septic tanks an offence punishable with imprisonment of two years or with a fine of Rs. 2 lakh or both even in the first instance.
- If State governments are reluctant to prosecute offenders, they are also slow to adopt newer technologies such as Faecal Sludge Treatment Plants (FSTP), which can be combined with omniprocessors for safe treatment of waste. For the task of cleaning the tanks, indigenous innovation in robotics looks promising.
Way forward
- A prototype is planned to be tested by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and such devices can potentially transform sanitation in India and other developing countries.
- But the pace of adoption will depend on the priority that government’s accord to the long-neglected problem.
- Last year, Tamil Nadu, and some other States, notably Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, announced plans to scale up FSTP infrastructure.
- This is a task that deserves the highest importance, and needs to be completed on deadline.
- What happened in Sriperumbudur highlights the heavy price that communities pay for the lack of scientific sanitation.
- If governments remain apathetic, citizens would expect the courts to step in to uphold the law against manual scavenging and make individual departments accountable.
- The science on sanitation has advanced, and policy must urgently catch up.
Fight over glyphosate-based herbicides
Relevance: Mains Paper 3: Science and Tec: Uses of Glyphosate
why in news?
- German pharma company Bayer is facing thousands of lawsuits over one of its products.
- 42,700 plaintiffs in the US are blaming Bayer’s herbicides for their cancer, up from 18,400 plaintiffs in July this year.
- It should have warned of the alleged cancer risks.
What are these herbicides?
- The herbicides are based on a compound called glyphosate. First developed in 1970, glyphosate is scientifically N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine under the IUPAC system of nomenclature. It is applied to the leaves of plants to kill weeds. It is widely used in India, too.
- According to a 2016 bulletin published by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the weedkiller in India goes by various brand names, including Roundup, Glycel, and Brake.
- Describing the herbicide’s reach in the country, it says, “Glyphosate was highly accepted by the tea planters in the past two decades.
- It has a very good market size in the tea sector of West Bengal and Assam.
- The consumption of glyphosate is highest in Maharas(h)tra as it is becoming a key herbicide in sugarcane, maize and many fruit crops including mango, banana, grapes, pomegranate and citrus.”
Why it is a worry
- In 2015, the Word Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer published a study that found glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans”.
- Activists have been campaignig against glyphosate-based products.
- France, Italy, and Vietnam banned the herbicide’s use after the IARC finding.
9-hour working day
Why in news?
Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Drafts and policis
- Government of India has released draft wage code rules which are now available in public domain for comments.
Key highlights of the draft:
- It has not spelled out a National Minimum Wage yet and said expert committees will suggest a minimum wage to the government in the future.
- The number of hours which shall constitute a normal working day shall be of 9 hours.
- HRA will be 10% of the minimum wage but will not classify whether it will be based on the category of the cities people live in.
- The floor wage will be revised every five years or less.
- While deciding the minimum wage the country will be divided into three geographic categories — metropolitan area having population of 40 lakhs or more, non-metropolitan area having a population of between 10 lakhs to 40 lakhs and rural areas.
- House rent will be 10% of the minimum wage but does not classify whether it will be higher based on the category of the cities people live. Expenditure on fuel, electricity and other miscellaneous items will
constitute 20% of minimum wage, an existing rule. - While calculating wage, an intake of 2,700 calories per day, 66 meters clothe per annum for a standard family will be taken into account. All these are part of the minimum wage calculation first done in 1957.