THE PROHIBITION OF EMPLOYMENT AS MANUAL SCAVENGERS AND THEIR REHABILITATION ACT, 2013
An Act to provide for the prohibition of employment as manual scavengers, rehabilitation of
manual scavengers and their families, and for matters connected therewith or incidental
thereto.
WHEREAS promoting among the citizens fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual is enshrined
as one of the goals in the Preamble to the Constitution;
AND WHEREAS the right to live with dignity is also implicit in the Fundamental Rights guaranteed in
Part III of the Constitution;
AND WHEREAS article 46 of the Constitution, inter alia, provides that the State shall protect the
weaker sections, and, particularly, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes from social injustice
and all forms of exploitation;
AND WHEREAS the dehumanising practice of manual scavenging, arising from the continuing
existence of insanitary latrines and a highly iniquitous caste system, still persists in various parts of the
country, and the existing laws have not proved adequate in eliminating the twin evils of insanitary latrines
and manual scavenging;
AND WHEREAS it is necessary to correct the historical injustice and indignity suffered by the manual
scavengers, and to rehabilitate them to a life of dignity.
BE it enacted by Parliament in the Sixty-fourth Year of the Republic of India as follows:—
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