Can India Be Truly 'Swachh' if Sanitation Workers Pay for it With Their Lives?

Today, October 2, is Gandhi Jayanti.

The Swachh Bharat or 'clean India' Mission was launched on October 2, 2014, on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. One of its key objectives was to eliminate open defecation by constructing toilets across rural and urban India and to make the country Open-Defecation Free (ODF). Ensuring health, safety and dignity, particularly for women, was another important objective. Toilets were also popularly referred to as izzat ghar, houses of dignity.

Mahatma Gandhi attached great importance to cleanliness. Therefore, carrying forward his vision of a clean India was also presented as one of the objectives of the campaign.

Gandhi believed that the stigma attached to sanitation work and manual scavenging was rooted in the practice of untouchability. He wanted society to reject this stigma and believed that cleanliness should be regarded as an honourable responsibility shared by people from all sections and castes of society. He wrote about sanitation in publications such as Harijan, Young India and Navajivan, and also spoke about it in his addresses to his followers.  “Scavenging is a fine art... We are clean as individuals, but not as members of the society," he wrote in November 19, 1925, in the English weekly Young India.

Under the Swachh Bharat Mission, millions of toilets were constructed. But another serious problem emerged: how would these toilets and the waste generated from them be safely cleaned and managed?

In many places, there was no proper drainage or sewerage system, resulting in the construction and use of septic tanks. In several cases, sanitation workers are still made to enter these tanks manually for cleaning. Sewer lines also become blocked and, despite the dangers involved, workers are sometimes sent inside to clear them.

Such practices can expose workers to poisonous gases and oxygen-deficient environments, putting their lives at grave risk.

A dangerous practice

It is deeply distressing that sanitation workers continue to lose their lives while cleaning sewers and septic tanks.

According to government data presented in Parliament in July 2026, based on information received from the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK), 332 sanitation workers died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks in hazardous conditions between 1 January 2021 and 30 June 2026 across 18 states and Union Territories. The government also reported that 193 FIRs had been registered during this period.

The NCSK's annual report for 2025–26 states that, according to cases that came to the Commission's notice, 1,377 deaths related to sewer and septic tank cleaning had been reported between 1993 and December 31, 2025.

These figures represent reported cases and may not necessarily capture the full extent of the problem. This raises an important question: are all such deaths properly identified and investigated?

We also need to ask why these deaths continue despite the existence of laws and government programmes intended to eliminate hazardous sanitation work.

Also read: 622 Sanitation Workers Have Died Since 2017, Govt Tells Lok Sabha; 52 Families Never Got Compensated

The Safai Karamchari Andolan has launched campaigns such as “Stop Killing Us” to draw attention to these deaths and demand an end to hazardous sewer and septic tank cleaning. The continuing occurrence of such deaths shows that much more needs to be done on the ground.

India has now entered the 80th year of its independence. Yet sanitation workers continue to face life-threatening conditions while performing work essential to keeping our cities and villages clean.

The law

India has laws specifically aimed at preventing manual scavenging and hazardous sewer and septic tank cleaning.

The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 prohibits the employment of manual scavengers and provides for the rehabilitation of persons engaged in such work.

The law also prohibits the employment or engagement of people for hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks in violation of prescribed safety requirements. Violations can attract imprisonment and fines.

Are the laws being effectively implemented?

If sanitation workers are still being sent into sewers and septic tanks without adequate safety measures, it indicates serious gaps in enforcement. Those responsible must be held accountable, and affected families must receive the compensation and rehabilitation to which they are entitled.

Without effective enforcement, even strong legislation remains inadequate.

Caste

The practice of manual scavenging and certain forms of sanitation work in India have historically been associated with caste-based discrimination. For generations, members of particular communities have been forced or socially compelled to perform sanitation work.

Over time, this has created a deeply entrenched perception that cleaning and sanitation are the “traditional occupations” of particular castes.

Such thinking is, needless to say, fundamentally discriminatory. No occupation should be imposed on anyone on the basis of birth or caste. Nor should a sanitation worker be treated as inferior because of the work they perform.

India has made noteworthy technological progress, yet hazardous manual entry into sewers and septic tanks continues in many places.

Modern machines and mechanised sanitation technologies can significantly reduce the need for workers to enter sewers and septic tanks. Sanitation workers themselves can be trained to operate and maintain these machines. Their experience and knowledge of sanitation work can become an asset in building a safer, more professional sanitation system.

Mechanisation should not mean taking away workers' livelihoods. Instead, it should mean transforming dangerous manual labour into safer and more dignified skilled employment.

The government has already introduced programmes such as the National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) to promote mechanisation, eliminate hazardous sanitation practices and improve the safety and welfare of sanitation workers. But if these programmes are being implemented is a question.

The safety, dignity, fair wages, healthcare and social security of sanitation workers are essential.

Their human rights and their right to live with dignity must be protected. Article 21 of the Constitution guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, and the right to live with dignity forms an important part of the constitutional understanding of the right to life.

A clean India cannot be built by putting the lives of those who clean it at risk.

Raj Valmiki is associated with the Safai Karamchari Andolan.

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