The programme was organised by the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Delhi SC/ST/OBC/Minorities and the Handicapped Finance and Development Corporation Limited at Dilshad Garden.

The CM emphasised her government’s commitment to rehabilitate all manual scavengers by March 2009 by providing them self-employment or alternative jobs.

A year’s free skill training in one particular trade will be given to scavengers by the government. They will also be paid a stipend of Rs 1000 per month during the training period. The government will also arrange concessional loans for self-employment projects upto Rs five lakh with a capital subsidy upto Rs 20,000.

Union Minister Meira Kumar said the training centre, inaugurated on Thursday, will provide an opportunity for trainees to develop skills and set up self-employment projects with government help.

This is the second batch of training organised at Dilshad Garden. The ATDC (Apparel Design & Training Centre) will train 320 manual scavengers in garment construction and NSIC (National Small Industries Corporation) will train 180 scavengers as beauticians and electricians.

The target group of scavengers is living in the Trans-Yamuna area near Sanskar Ashram, Dilshad Garden, Delhi. The first batch of training was organised at Tronica City, Ghaziabad, through the ATDC for 39 scavengers.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in 2006 held a meeting of all states to chalk out a strategy to rehabilitate scavengers. A survey carried out by the evaluation cell of NHRC, reported that almost 80 per cent of those rehabilitated did not go back to their old profession.

Finally, the Delhi Government again decided to conduct a survey for the identification of manual scavengers through the Department of Social Work, University of Delhi.

The Department of Social Work submitted its report and identified 1085 scavengers still in existence in Delhi. Nearly 400 applicants have given a preference for the training and are keen to avail the loan on offer.