Tired of the endless wait for compensation, thousands of Indians may return to manual scavenging
In Karnataka alone, 3,000 manual scavengers have not received proper rehabilitation, including cash assistance or training for alternative employment. Even as India banned manual scavenging in 1993, the practice is still widespread. | Xavier Galiana / AFP
Bala does not remember at what age he started working as a pit cleaner. By the time he had turned 15-year-old, he was helping his father as a manual scavenger. “My family had been doing this work for as far as I can remember,” he told
IndiaSpend
in Kolar, 100 km from Bengaluru, in December 2020.