Empowering Lives: NAMASTE Scheme Delivers Tangible Change for Sanitation Workers

📌 Summary:

• NAMASTE (National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem) Scheme launched FY 2023-24 has delivered significant outcomes for sewer and septic tank workers

• 90,942 workers profiled; 89,248 validated; 87,037 given PPE kits; 76,247 covered under health insurance schemes

• ₹34.17 crore capital subsidy released to 983 sanitation workers for procuring 364 mechanised vehicles

• 1,562 workshops conducted on prevention of hazardous sewer/septic tank cleaning

• 753 safety devices dispatched to Emergency Response Sanitation Units (ERSUs) in large municipal corporations

• Since June 2024: Waste pickers included as target group; 3,78,547 profiled; 2,52,163 validated via e-KYC; 1,31,864 received PPE kits; 1,24,835 processed for Ayushman Cards

• FY 2025-26 enhancements: Swachhata Udyami Yojana (SUY) subsidy ceiling raised — individual: ₹5 lakh → ₹7.5 lakh; group (up to 5): ₹18.75 lakh → ₹25 lakh

• New: 25% capital subsidy to Private Sanitation Service Organisations (PSSOs) for mechanised cleaning equipment

• ₹14.84 crore released to 320 Sanipreneurs in FY 2025-26 (up from 250 in previous year)

• Scheme described as transformative social reform: rights-based approach integrating technological innovation

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS2 – Governance & Social Justice: Welfare schemes for marginalised workers; eradication of manual scavenging; GS4 – Ethics: Dignity of labour

📝 Prelims Facts:

• NAMASTE launched: FY 2023-24; Ministry: Social Justice & Empowerment

• ERSU: Emergency Response Sanitation Units (in larger municipal corporations)

• Swachhata Udyami Yojana (SUY): capital subsidy sub-scheme under NAMASTE

• Sanipreneur: sanitation workers turned entrepreneurs under NAMASTE

🔑 Key Term: Manual Scavenging – practice of manually cleaning, carrying or disposing of untreated human excreta from dry latrines, sewers; prohibited under Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers Act 2013; NAMASTE aims to eliminate it through mechanisation