lucknow jhansi ranked third in uttar pradesh in the swachh bharat ranking 2017 has a dark underbelly the ageold tradition of manual scavenging continues in parts of the cityas the historic city prepares to vote for municipal corporation elections on wednesday toi met some manual scavengers and their families in the city though the jhansi municipal corporation jmc denied existence of manual scavenging in the city these manual scavengers are paid a mere rs 50 a week from every house they serve and say they do it to feed their families the municipal corporation has been neglecting their application to provide an alternative job since past six years they complainedfor bablesh 40 a manual scavenger the day begins at 7 am as she goes around cleaning dry toilets in about a dozen homes in schoolpuram premnagar thana and eesaai tola then carrying the dry faeces in a basket on her head to the final disposal point on the outskirts she has been following the routine since 2008 though most unwillingly who likes lifting human faeces on the head i do it because i have no other job if i let go of this how will i feed my family my daughters had to quit studies midway because of our poverty said bableshwith tears in her eyes her daughter neetu said that her father ramesh who is a private sweeper in the corporation had applied for an alternative job for her mother in the corporation in 2010 but she has not been offered a job like bablesh there are more than 250 others in the city who are still earning livelihood by lifting human faeces as per jmc records manual scavenging ended years ago and there are no manual scavengers left in jhansi in 201011 jmc conducted a survey and found 116 scavengerswere invisible to municipal corporationbut today they claim that the practice has been abolished as 43 scavengers have been offered private sanitary workers job while others were not found to be genuine scavengers however a reality check showed that there are families still in schoolpura eesaai tola premnagar thana biharipura khadiya mohalla jugnu marriage garden that have dry toilets and hire manual scavengers for cleaning lakshmi 35 who is also a scavenger says jmc doesnt identify us though we scavenge every day we are invisible to them though they have taken our forms and verified them in my family this trade is being followed since last two generations