The third NAMASTE Day was marked in Kolkata on July 14, with celebrations built around the government's push to give sanitation workers safer working conditions and greater dignity, even as similar programmes ran in urban local bodies across the country on the same day.
What Union Minister Virendra Kumar said
Speaking at the event, Union Minister Virendra Kumar said the NAMASTE Scheme reflects the government's commitment to ensuring every sanitation worker is able to work with dignity and safety. He was in Kolkata to honour sanitation workers as part of the day's programme.
A first for Kolkata: the Divya Kala Mela
Alongside NAMASTE Day, the Centre and the West Bengal government jointly organised the first Divya Kala Mela in Kolkata, bringing an event usually built around showcasing the work of persons with disabilities into the same city and window as the sanitation worker celebrations.
A nationwide effort, not a one city event
While Kolkata hosted the flagship celebrations, urban local bodies across India ran parallel programmes on July 14 to mark NAMASTE Day, underlining that the scheme's reach extends well beyond one state capital. The scheme had earlier been described as reaching a milestone in advancing the dignity and safety of sanitation workers, and in February, a NAMASTE Scheme programme was also held in Pilibhit in the presence of Minister of State B. L. Verma.
Why it matters
Manual and unsafe sanitation work has long carried serious health and safety risks for workers across Indian cities. The NAMASTE Scheme is aimed at addressing this by promoting safer, more dignified working conditions for sanitation workers, and events like the Kolkata celebrations are being used by the government to draw public attention to that effort.
