Rag Pickers in India

Sustainability of Human Rights with Special Reference to Child Rights: A Case Study of Rag Pickers in Cuttack City Abstract Dillip Kumar Mallik The discourse on rights is evolving with time. The rights of the Rag Pickers as part of the broad rights discourse have assumed significance in contemporary times. My Ph. D research is located within the rights framework. Rag Pickers are those children we can find out them in railway station, municipality areas, bus stand, industries areas, garbage and household areas with having a heavy gunny bags and collected and sorted: plastic, paper, bottles, bones and metals.

Diferent plans outlined by Government Agencies have rolled out government has taken lot of initiative for empowering the childhood. For example, policies like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the free mid-day meal programme and many others have been there for a long tyime. But the question is if they are successful, then why there is early drop out of students and more significantly, why children belonging to poor sections in urban areas have turned into rag pickers. The metro cities have the largest number of rag pickers in the country.

It would be difficult to ascribe any particular caste or any other form of identities to these children. The central question of this research is whether Government policies are inadequate to respond the needs and requirements of this group of children. Along with this central question the study also looks at other related questions. Whether the rag pickers belong to marginalised groups? Do these rag pickers constitute a majority of school drop outs? The research revolves round these questions.

Some of the key objectives of the research are 1) to study and understand the socio-economic condition of the rag pickers, Second is To know the impact of the rag pickers on the society, Third, to provide proper education as well as health awareness for the children. Fourth, to make assessment the changing behavioural pattern of the children of rag pickers, and finally To improve the nutritional health status of children. The researcher choose Cuttack district of Odisha will the area of study because it is one of the oldest cities, better known as the Business Capital of Orissa.

The study was concentrated slums, railway stations, medical, municipality area and most important industrial estates where these children were picking more rag. In the present study the researcher employed interview schedule and group discussion as the tools for data collection. Both primary and secondary sources of data will employ for this research. The primary data are collected from the respondents of Cuttack district of Orissa. The secondary data are based on books, journal, article, guides, magazine, newspaper, and statistical report, published and unpublished document and mostly from internet sources.

In the present study the researcher will employ two types of method for data analysis: qualitative and quantitative. Both the methods are correlated with each other, though qualitative method is little prior than quantitative methods. Qualitative method is a raw material for any type research, by which we know the details about the theoretical aspect, but by using of quantitative method we would able to manipulate and evaluate the statistical analysis of the data through the helps of advanced computing package like SPSS.