The Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Smt. Meira Kumar has urged the Minister of Rural Development, Dr. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh to take urgent steps to ensure that all dry latrines in rural areas are converted into water seal latrines by March 2009, which is also the target date for rehabilitation of remaining manual scavengers. She further mentioned that eradication of the practice of manual scavenging is an area of very high priority for our Government and is intended to be achieved through Enforcement of the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, Conversion of dry latrines into water seal latrines – with Government support under relevant schemes and Rehabilitation of manual scavengers into alternative occupations – through the Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS).
She also said that the conversion of dry latrines is, however, key to eliminating the practice of manual scavenging.
Source - PIB