As India races ahead with dreams of becoming a five-trillion-dollar economy, building smart cities, rolling out 5G networks and showcasing robotic innovation, a dark and shameful truth continues to fester underground. A recent audit by the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) has revealed that in over 90 percent of sewer-related deaths, the workers were sent in without any safety gear. This stark finding is not merely a data point; it is a tragic reflection of our development model that continues to neglect the lives of the most vulnerable.
It is a cruel irony that in a country that builds satellites, develops space programs and boasts of tech-driven convenience in every urban sphere, human beings are still descending into gas-filled sewers with bare hands, often with no harness, no oxygen mask, no protective suit. While cities automate parking and digitise public services, the cleaning of sewers still relies largely on manual labour, typically carried out by people from marginalised communities.
The Audit That Exposes a Systemic Failure
The NCSK audit reviewed 123 deaths related to sewer work over the past five years across 16 states. It found that safety protocols were grossly violated in over 90 percent of the cases. Most of the deceased were not formally employed; they were hired casually, often without any training, safety briefing or emergency plan. The audit notes that even where machines are available, manual entry into sewers remains the default method of cleaning, particularly in smaller towns and peri-urban areas.
This means that despite available technologies, municipalities and contractors continue to rely on human bodies to enter the most hazardous environments, risking their lives for tasks that can and should be done mechanically.
Technology for the Privileged, Danger for the Poor
This raises urgent questions about the nature of our technological progress. Why is innovation focused on sectors that improve the lives of the urban middle class, while sanitation workers still function in medieval conditions? The lack of protective gear, absence of formal employment and non-payment of compensation to the families of deceased workers reflect not just administrative failure but deep societal apathy.
Several initiatives, including Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and pilot projects using sewer-cleaning robots like Bandicoot, have been introduced. But their implementation remains tokenistic. The machines lie unused in many municipalities due to lack of training or simple unwillingness to change the status quo. Contractors continue to exploit unskilled labour because it is cheaper, even if deadly.
A Crisis of Caste and Class
At its core, this issue is not only about technology or development but about caste and class. The majority of manual scavengers and sanitation workers belong to Dalit communities. Their labour is invisible, their lives dispensable and their deaths often unnoticed by the mainstream. The audit reveals that even the mandatory compensation for sewer deaths is rarely paid on time, if at all.
This continued dependence on manual scavenging is rooted in structural inequality. Until we confront and dismantle the casteist underpinnings of sanitation work, reforms will remain superficial.
What Needs to Change Immediately
Improving the system doesn’t require reinventing the wheel. Mechanised cleaning should be made compulsory in all municipalities to eliminate the hazardous practice of manual sewer cleaning. Municipal officials and contractors must be held criminally liable if any worker is sent into a sewer without proper safety gear, ensuring accountability at every level. Every sanitation worker should be formally employed, trained, insured, and adequately paid to safeguard their rights and well-being.
Most importantly, sanitation work must be recognised as skilled technical labour that deserves dignity, safety, and full institutional support.
Final Word: A National Shame
It is no longer acceptable to call ourselves a rising global power while men are still dying in gutters, cleaning our waste with their bare hands. Smart cities cannot be built on the broken backs of invisible workers. The question is not whether we can afford to mechanise sewer cleaning; the real question is, how can we afford not to?
Until no human enters a manhole without full protection, or better yet, until no human enters a manhole at all, the vision of a truly developed and humane India will remain hollow.
Photo Credit: The Hindu
For more opinion stories click here
Follow us for latest updates:
