National Action Plan for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE)

In News: The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJ&E) is now preparing to undertake a nationwide survey to enumerate all people engaged in hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks, an activity that has led to at least 351 deaths since 2017.

• Drawing a distinction between this work and manual scavenging, the Ministry insisted that the practice of manual scavenging no longer takes place in the country as all manual scavengers had been accounted for and enrolled into the rehabilitation scheme.
• The enumeration exercise, soon to be conducted across 500 AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) cities, is part of the Union government’s National Action Plan for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE), which will streamline the process of rehabilitating sanitation workers and eventually merge with and replace the Self-Employment Scheme for the Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS), which was started in 2007.
• Explaining that the enumeration of people engaged in hazardous cleaning of septic tanks and sewers would be the next step, ministry said that they will now set up Programme Monitoring Units (PMUs) for the 500 AMRUT cities, who will be at the frontlines of carrying out the exercise.
• Eventually, the idea is to also link these sanitation workers to the Swachhta Udyami Yojana, through which the workers will be able to own sanitation machines themselves and the government will ensure that at the municipality level, the work keeps coming in.

National Action Plan for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE)

• The government has developed the NAMASTE scheme—to clean septic tanks and sewers.
• The NAMASTE project, is a joint project of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

The project aims to achieve the following outcomes:

• Zero fatalities in sanitation work in India.
• All sanitation work to be performed by skilled workers.
• No sanitation workers should come in direct contact with human faecal matter.
• Sanitation workers are to be collectivized into SHGs and are empowered to run sanitation enterprises.
• All Sewer and Septic tank sanitation workers (SSWs) have access to alternative livelihoods.
• Strengthened supervisory and monitoring systems at national, state and ULB levels to ensure enforcement and monitoring of safe sanitation work.
• Increased awareness amongst sanitation services seekers (individuals and institutions) to seek services from registered and skilled sanitation workers.

Swachhta Udyami Yojana

• The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment launched the Swachhta Udyami Yojana (SUY) on 02nd October 2014.
• This Scheme has twin objective of cleanliness and providing livelihood to Safai Karamcharis and liberated Manual Scavengers to achieve the overall goal of “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan”
• The Swachhta Udyami Yojana extends financial assistance for Construction, Operation and Maintenance of Pay and Use Community Toilets in Public Private Partnership (PPP) Mode and Procurement and Operation of Sanitation related Vehicles.
• The scheme also provides for training the workers in the use of these machines, during which time a stipend of up to ₹3,000 per month will be provided.
• The scheme will also provide for sanitation workers to train for and go into any of the approved list of alternative occupations in sectors like agriculture, services, electronics assembling, handicrafts and so on.

Source: The Hindu

Previous Year Question

Q.1) Which one of the following is a purpose of ‘UDAY’, a scheme of the Government? (2016)

1. Providing technical and financial assistance to start-up entre-preneurs in the field of renewable sources of energy
2. Providing electricity to every household iv the country by 2018
3. Replacing the coal-based power plants with natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind and tidal power plants over a period of time.
4. Providing for financial turnaround and revival of power distribution companies