enumeration of manual scavengers as a separate category has been completely left out of the urban secc 2011 in rajasthan as per the ministry of rural development government of india guidelines manual scavengers are one of the five categories of households who are to be compulsorily included in the list of beneficiaries for various schemes identified by the new secc 2011 which is in progress strangely the question on whether a household member is engaged in manual scavenging has been explicitly included in the rural questionnaire section 4 col7 but missing in the urban one in fact the urban questionnaire not only excludes any such question in column 11 which asks the main source of income of household members it lumps cleaners and gardeners safaiwala swachatakarmi mali under the same category the government says it will identify and rehabilitate manual scavengers on the one hand and excludes them during a nationwide survey which could have provided the figures the finance ministry has earmarked rs 98 crore for rehabilitation of manual scavengers of which the social justice and empowerment ministry plans to spend rs 36 crore on a survey it has not even begun the secc 2011 could have been used to do this as it anyway has to and avoid duplication and waste of resources but this opportunity has been missed said bezwada wilsonnational convenor of safai karamchari andolan ska going by the revised and broader definition of manual scavenging as proposed by the task force to review the employment of manual scavengers and construction of dry latrines prohibition act 1993 a manual scavenger is defined as a person engaged in or employed by an individual an urban local body or any other public or private agency for manually cleaning carrying disposing or dealing in any manner with human excreta in a latrine a tanka drain or a sewer line or open spaces including railway tracks by this definition manual scavengers will be found in far greater numbers in urban rather than rural areas the ska which has filed a petition in the supreme court in 2009 submitted evidence of the existence of manual scavenging and dry latrines in many states including rajasthan it found close to 1000 manual scavengers in 22 districts especially in nagaur karauli tonk bharatpur dholpur ajmer and alwar