User:Sabhazaidi101/sandbox

Pragya Akhilesh is called the ‘toilet woman of Delhi’. She is a trade unionist and activist working on the labour movement for the eradication of manual scavenging and the rehabilitation of manual scavengers. She has pointed out that despite lofty claims of Open Defecation Free status in most parts of India, there are manual scavengers at work under deplorable conditions. In an interview she said, in India, we are only focusing on building toilets. There is less focus on eradicating the previously constructed dry latrines. There is a vast difference between the database of urban and rural sanitation coverage in India. The hanging toilets and dry latrines found in semi-urban and rural areas continue to exist also because we have not been able to reach them. The sanitary toilets built under the SBA have their own unique problems.

In 2012 she started the Khamosh! Bhim Jaari hai Campaign as a theatre movement for the rehabilitation of the different categories of sanitation workers. She is also the national secretary of the Bhim Safai Karmachari Trade Union and the convener of Rehabilitation Research Initiative. On manual scavenging and rehabilitation schemes, she points out that there is an urgent need of provisions for intermittent hand-holding to ensure sustenance and not just immediate rehabilitation. Among other things, she suggests an immediate reassessment of contractual employment of sanitation workers which makes workers vulnerable. She also points out that some contractual workers do get the amount of Rs 10 lakh because the process is very cumbersome as it takes so many rounds to government offices. Also, in certain cases next of kin get less than 10 lakhs without any explaination.

In an Indian express piece she pointed out that against Covid-19, the most vulnerable frontline sanitation workers, the manual scavengers have not received the attention they deserve in the current vaccination schemes of the government in India.