No Manual Scavenger, Hence No Scavenging Deaths: Indian Government In Parliament

Late in July, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment was asked a series of questions about manual scavenging in Parliament, starting with whether the practice continues in India. Along with this, Lok Sabha member M P Abdussamad Samadani asked questions about the caste profile of those who engage in the work and the steps taken to rehabilitate them.

The response, delivered by the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Ramdas Athawale, would surprise many. Still available on sansad.nic.in, it blandly noted on 29 June 2025: “No report of the practice of manual scavenging has been received from States/UTs.” It also said, “No death has been reported due to Manual Scavenging, which is [the] lifting of human excreta from insanitary latrines.”   

Manual scavenging, according to the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, happens when a person is engaged or employed—by an individual, local authority, agency or contractor—for manually cleaning, carrying, disposing or handling human excreta in any form, before it has fully decomposed.

The 2013 law bans the practice and says that manual scavengers across the country would be identified and their rehabilitation ensured. The Minister’s response in Parliament was broadly along these lines too, but what he did not clarify is the stark contrast that exists between policy and practice on the issue.

While the 2013 law prohibits “hazardous cleaning”, it does not outright ban manual cleaning of sewers and septic tanks. It leaves room for appropriate protective equipment and safety protocols while cleaning such sites—provided there is an extraordinary or emergency requirement to enter a sewer or manhole. The law also mandates a person to wear full protective gear—gloves, coat, mask, gumboots—and for an oxygen cylinder and ambulance to be on standby during the process. Ordinarily, or for regular cleaning and maintenance work, going down a sewer or manhole is prohibited.

Even so, the government has admitted in a parliamentary answer from last year, that 377 people died between 2019 and 2023 during “hazardous cleaning” of sewers and septic tanks. That adds up to over 75 deaths a year on average.

As per another dataset available on the website of the statutory body, the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK), 1313 sewer and septic tank deaths were reported between 1993 and 2025 (up to June 30). This data records 63 sanitation worker deaths while cleaning sewers or septic tanks in 2023 and another 52 such deaths in 2024. 

Hence, 41 lives are extinguished every year, on average, in pursuit of an activity that’s banned—or should only be allowed during emergencies. Even so, does emergency or urgency justify inhuman work conditions, even leading to death?

Bezwada Wilson, national convenor of the Safai Karmachari Andolan, said that even at 1313, the number of sewer deaths—occurring presumably during “hazardous cleaning” done in emergencies—is severely underreported.

“That number is not accurate. While they (NCSK) do collect some data and the SKA also writes to them about each death, many cases are overlooked or not properly recorded,” he said.

The law also says that the government must eliminate the need for manual entry for regular maintenance tasks and adopt a comprehensive plan for the safety and dignity of sanitation workers. But, as the fatalities show in the starkest way, these protocols are followed more in the exception.

“The Prime Minister says startups and private researchers will come up with the technology to mechanise the system,” said Wilson, “But the technology is already available; India just has to adapt it to its drainage system.”

The government launched the NAMASTE scheme, the National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem, whose objectives include raising awareness to engage only registered and skilled sanitation workers. But, ironically, there is no centralised portal on which sanitation workers can register themselves, said Wilson.

The NAMASTE scheme is supposed to equip and strengthen Emergency Response Sanitation Units for mechanised sanitation services and empower sanitation workers to operate their own sanitation enterprises using modern equipment. On paper, all is in sync with the law and Supreme Court directions on manual sanitation workers’ dignity and rights.

In a December 10, 2024 response to the Parliament, Athawale stated that "A mobile application and portal has also been developed to capture the data of Manual Scavengers and insanitary latrines in urban and rural areas, if any."

Additionally, out of 766 districts, 249 districts have declared themselves as Manual Scavengers free districts and uploaded the certificate on portal.

But according to Wilson, instead of rehabilitation or doing the minimum—registering all sanitation workers—the government simply expects them to take out loans to buy sewage cleaning machines. The problem with this approach is it keeps workers locked into the same job, just with equipment added. It raises a question: why must workers get burdened with loans to do the same work they were doing before? “It is the government that should provide the machines. Not doing so is a ‘modern’ form of untouchability in a ‘modern’ caste system,” he said.

Because these workers are not counted, it is impossible to rehabilitate them or find legal heirs in case of an accident, injury or death. In 2023, a Supreme Court order raised the compensation amount for sewer deaths from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 30 lakh, to be paid by the concerned agency—meaning the central government, state or Union Territory. And if a worker gets a permanent disability, leaving them unable to work (“economically helpless”), the compensation, the court said, “shall not be less than” Rs 20 lakh.

Outlook emailed the NCSK to ask if anybody who became “economically helpless” due to a disability sustained while on the job received compensation from the government, but did not get a response. We also enquired about the defined standards of periodicity to clean sewage systems, if any, set by the Bureau of Indian Standards. A response is awaited and will be updated as and when it arrives.

A senior government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the government’s guidelines on how compensation should be disbursed are unclear. The same ambiguity exists in rehabilitation.

Further, in the absence of a central registration system, it falls on the NCSK or organizations like Wilson’s to list and record sewer and septic tank deaths. At present, the NCSK list includes the names of 55 people who have died but whose legal heirs could not be traced “despite best efforts”, a reminder of the human cost of neglect. The SKA has verified the death count for recent years, but earlier deaths remain undocumented. Many cases go unreported or underreported, especially in remote areas.

Absent an official survey, even deaths in the capital city, Delhi, do not feature in the government’s data (including answers in Parliament), over the past year, said Wilson. That is why there are 55 people whose next of kin could not be contacted.

Wilson said the entire system is deeply casteist. It pushes the burden of both the inhuman work and getting out of its clutches on the caste/communities relegated to the role of scavenging in the traditional caste hierarchy. Here, again, Minister of State Athawale said in his 2025 response in Parliament, “Manual Scavenging work is occupation based rather than caste based. Caste-based data of identified Manual Scavengers has not been maintained.”

Another response in Parliament from July 31, 2024, answering to the question regarding the details of total number of people engaged in manual scavenging, Athawale said that there were 58,098 identified manual scavengers across the country, with the highest number in Uttar Pradesh (32,473) and the lowest in Chhattisgarh (3). 

But since the data has not been collated or verified systematically at the central level, training and equipping these workers for rehabilitation or to demand dignified work conditions has proved difficult.

Wilson said, “The government must urgently prioritise a nationwide survey to identify all sanitation workers. It must make them all permanent employees, purchase machines for them and develop the required adaptive technologies. Finally, this occupation should be opened up like any other profession.”

Outlook emailed Minister Athawale with queries on how manual scavenging and sewer deaths are different, and the implications of the categorisation for compensation and accountability. A response will be updated whenever it is received.

In many cities, including Delhi, sanitation workers face a second challenge of being contractual workers, outsourced through contractors by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB). So, while the role of the principal employer—the Jal Board—may have changed on paper due to the law and court orders, nothing changes for the workers on the ground, Wilson stated.

In fact, the contractual system has ended the low but still regular payments they received when the DJB hired them directly. 

“But this is not a fight for money—it is a fight for human dignity,” Wilson reminds.

Outlook contacted the DJB regarding the hiring of sanitation workers and provision of safety gear to them, but calls went unanswered.

The government official highlighted several other issues that signal deep structural deficiencies. For example, sewer systems sometimes become partially functional before they are fully constructed. This leads to a heavy buildup of toxic fumes, making the risk of fatality particularly high for those made to climb into them. But if there are fatalities in such cases, they often do not get recorded as manual scavenging or sewer deaths simply because the sewer system has not been officially inaugurated.

Another missing piece in the puzzle is that at present, the positions of Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson remain vacant at the NCSK. 

What seems missing is a comprehensive action plan—or, pending that, even plain acknowledgement—of the problem by the government. India is yet to sort and categorise garbage, not even the hazardous medical and chemical waste.

“We cannot just keep celebrating Chandrayaan,” as Wilson said, “We need to do something about our sewers too.”