Manual scavengers: welfare and rehabilitation
Manual Scavenger means a person engaged or employed on regular or frequent basis by an individual or a local authority or a public or private agency, for manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling in any manner, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or pit into which human excreta from insanitary latrines is disposed of, or on a railway track, before the excreta fully decomposes. Manual Scavengers are usually self employed or contract employees. “Self employed” means a person who scavenges a group of households” dry latrines or drains etc. in a particular ward, for payment in cash and/or in kind, by the house-owners. Contract employees would normally be those who are hired through contractors, by a municipal body or any other organization or a group of house-owners, to scavenge individual or community dry latrines and open drains where night soil is disposed.