Up From The Dumps

Nalini Shekar and Shekar Prabhakar’s Hasiru Dala brings dignity to the lives of waste pickers besides being a green warrior in the fight against trash.

- Harichandan Arakali

The work done by India’s sizeable army of men and women who dumpster dive, for tradeable plastics, metal, bottles, is invisible; the impact of their efforts, though, is conspicuous—a lot of garbage clearing in India is done informally, by waste pickers who work without any job security, fixed salary or recourse to a social safety net.

In 2012, Bengaluru-based couple Nalini Shekar and Shekar Prabhakar decided to do something for the unorganised waste pickers of their city, where rapid urbanisation is creating an unprecedented waste management crisis. The two founded an umbrella organisation for six NGOs that were already working with waste pickers: Hasiru Dala. The name (meaning Green Brigade in Kannada) was chosen by the waste pickers themselves, recalls Prabhakar, 54, in an interview in his office.

In November 2013, the two started an eponymous trust, which soon approached the Lok Adalat and, with its backing, got the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the city’s civic body, to issue formal identification cards to waste pickers. For most of them, this was their first government recognised ID, carrying the municipal commissioner’s signature. “For the first time in the country, an urban local body issued ID cards [to waste pickers],” says Nalini, 53.

So far, around 8,000 such IDs have been issued thanks to Hasiru Dala. Further, urban local bodies across the country are expected to implement similar policies, says Prabhakar. On the basis of the IDs, women have been able to open bank accounts and Hasiru Dala has helped 400 youngsters get education loans from the central government, and 1,800 families were able to avail health insurance from central government schemes.