On the occasion of World Environment Day 2025, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJE) reaffirmed its commitment to environmental justice and worker dignity, by launching a Nationwide Digital Application - Waste Picker Enumeration App - for profiling Waste Pickers under the NAMASTE Scheme, in New Delhi today. The event was graced by the presence of Union Minister of State (SJE) Shri B L Verma, Secretary (DoSJE), Shri Amit Yadav, Senior Economic Advisor (MoSJE), Smt. Yogita Swaroop, Ms. Manvita Baradi, Founder and Director, UMC and Shri P.K. Singh, Managing Director, NSKFDC.

With the inclusion of Waste Pickers, NAMASTE now aims to enumerate 2.5 lakh individuals, offering them formal identity, social protection, skill development, and collective empowerment. This historic step formally recognizes Waste Pickers as critical actors in India's circular economy and aims to provide them with safer working conditions, better access to entitlements, and long-term livelihood security. The expanded NAMASTE Scheme seeks to profile:

• Issue occupational photo ID cards to Waste Pickers
• Provide health insurance under Ayushman Bharat (PM-JAY)
• Deliver PPE kits, skilling, and access to capital subsidies
• Strengthen Waste Picker Collectives to manage 750 DryWaste Collection Centers (DWCCs)

By recognizing and integrating Waste Pickers into formal urban systems, the Government of India takes a step toward building a more inclusive, equitable, and environmentally resilient sanitation ecosystem. During the event, along with the formal launch of the Waste Picker Enumeration App, two major knowledge products were also released:

• ‘Resource Guide: Mainstreaming Waste Picker Collectives as Service Delivery Partners’, and
• ‘Charting Change: Socio-Economic Insights into India’s Sanitation Workforce (2023–2025)’

The National Action for Mechanized Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) is an ongoing Central Sector Scheme jointly implemented by MoSJE and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) with NSKFDC being implementation agency for sewer and septic tank workers (SSWs). The scheme expanded its mandate in June 2024 to include Waste Pickers.

As of May 29, 2025, the scheme has successfully:

• Enumerated and validated over 80,000 SSWs
• Facilitated the distribution of 26,447 Ayushman Bharat health cards
• Delivered over 45,781 PPE kits
• Provided 354 Emergency Response Safety Kits

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VM

(Release ID: 2134303)