"Workers die in Delhi’s sewers while government denies responsibility,"

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Manual scavenging was outlawed in India under The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013; but despite the law, sanitation workers continue to be forced into hazardous cleaning... While the Act bans hazardous cleaning, there is no specific ban on manual cleaning of sewer and septic tanks as long as protective gear is given...

Despite these financial commitments, contract workers say their working conditions remain dangerous: no safety gear and complete government apathy towards deaths in sewers. Activists such as Bezwada Wilson argue that funds are allocated on paper; sanitation workers are not even recognised as “workers”—they are treated as disposable, contractualisation continues, and they are forced into the most hazardous conditions, with no state accountability. And they continue to die.

The Delhi Jal Board (DJB), the nodal state agency responsible for the management and maintenance of water and sewage lines in Delhi, has distanced itself from the March 16 death, claiming that the deceased worker was neither employed by them nor working under a contractual arrangement with the Board...

Contractualisation, which remains unchecked, means that most workers who descend into Delhi’s sewers are mostly poor migrant workers or daily wage workers, lured by desperate economic circumstances into hazardous jobs that offer little pay and no legal protection. “There is a nexus of police and private contractors, making it difficult to track migrant workers. When someone dies, their bodies are often sent back to their villages quietly”, revealed Sanjeev Danda from DASAM...

Most sewer workers in DJB are hired through private contractors. The DJB issues tenders online, and contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder. These private companies then recruit labourers, but only on a contractual basis. The workers’ contracts mention only the private contractor, not the fact that they are engaged in DJB work...

“We don’t get our salaries on time; sometimes after two or three months. How do we run our homes?” asked Sanjeev, a worker employed by Smart Green Infra & Logistics Management, a private company that provides sewerage and sewage treatment services and hires workers on contract to operate sewer cleaning machines for DJB. Sanjeev works as a helper for machines introduced in 2019 under the AAP government to eliminate manual entry into the sewers...

[The Resource Centre was unable to find contact information for Smart Green Infra & Logistics Management to respond to this article; if a response is received in future this page will be updated accordingly.]