As per the “Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (MS Act, 2013) manual scavenging is a prohibited activity in the country with effect from 6.12.2013. All districts have been requested to either declare themselves free from manual scavenging or upload the data of insanitary latrine and manual scavengers associated with it on the Mobile App “Swachhta Abhiyan”. There is no deadline for districts to declare themselves manual scavenging free. As on 10.12.2023, 38 districts of six states of the country have not reported themselves as manual scavenging-free; details thereof are as follows-

State-wise number of district, who have not reported manual scavenging free

 

S.No.	Name of States/UTs	Number of District
1.	Assam	3
2.	Jharkhand	1
3	Madhya Pradesh	10
4.	Manipur	9
5	Meghalaya	2
6	Telangana	13

 

There is no report of people currently engaged in manual scavenging in the country.

Manual scavenging as defined under Section 2 (1) (g) of the “Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (MS Act, 2013)” is prohibited with effect from 6.12.2013. No person or agency can engage or employ any person for manual scavenging from that date.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Ramdas Athawale in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

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