Union minister and Lok Janshakti Party president Ram Vilas Paswan Monday demanded a stringent law to ban manual scavenging, terming the death of five people while cleaning a sewage treatment plant here as heart-rending, shameful and inhuman.
In tweets, Paswan said his party has been demanding for years that manual scavenging be banned and a stringent law be enacted against those who push people into it.
Such a law should have provisions of a 10-year jail term and Rs 50 lakh fine, and it should be invoked against contractors using labourers for manual scavenging, the Dalit leader said.
Five people died Sunday due to asphyxiation after they entered a sewage treatment plant in west Delhi's Moti Nagar area, an official said.
It is very painful that such incidents keep happening every month, Paswan said.
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