Millions in India still make a living cleaning human waste with bare hands — RT India

On Wednesday, India’s Supreme Court ordered an immediate halt to manual scavenging and the hazardous practice of cleaning sewers and septic tanks in major metropolitan cities of the world’s fifth-largest economy – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.

A bench led by Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia instructed municipal authorities to submit a detailed affidavit outlining how and when manual scavenging and sewer cleaning will be eliminated in their cities, with a deadline set for February 13.

The Supreme Court issued the order while overseeing its October 2023 ruling that mandated all states and Union Territories to completely eliminate the inhumane practice of manual scavenging. On Wednesday, the court expressed its frustration over ongoing violations and non-compliance. “Can we say today that manual scavenging is banned from now on?… We are fed up with orders. We are directing you: either do it or face consequences,” the bench said.

This latest order is unlikely to be a game-changer for Rishabh Pamariya, 22, who begins most days by going to the nearby Brahmin colony in Nagra, Jhansi, in central India, where he still cleans open latrines used in the older parts of the city.

Hailing from the ‘dom’ community – a Dalit (formerly “untouchable”) at the bottom of the Hindu caste pyramid – this is his community’s profession and there is nothing he can do about it. 

He wanted to be a teacher, but after dropping out after finishing eighth grade, he had to start work as a sweeper and human scavenger, like his parents. 

“No matter what you become, you will always remain a dom,” says his mother Shanti, who has been manually cleaning latrines since she married in her teens. She recalls getting paid 5 to 8 rupees a month from each household in the early 1990s; now her son gets 40 to 50 rupees ($0.47 to $0.58) for the same work. He is barely able to earn 8,500 rupees a month ($100), not enough to make ends meet.

Many Dalits and Dalit sub-castes are compelled to take up this work.  “We are helpless and have no other source of income,” Rishabh says. “Since I did not even pass high school (grade 10) I am not qualified for anything else.”

They do not know that what they’re do is illegal. But since the mechanically-operated emptying machines cannot navigate the narrow streets and winding lanes of a pre-independence neighborhood, Rishabh and his friends (or even local residents) are hired by the local municipality to clean septic tanks and latrines manually.

“When someone in the neighborhood calls us to clean the septic tanks, we go and clean them manually,” he says. “We have around seven lads between 18 and 24 to do this work. My father did this earlier but is now with the municipality and since he is growing old it gets difficult for him to hold his breath for long stretches.” 

He describes the nature of his work: “I first undress and enter the septic tank in my underwear through a narrow opening. There is very little oxygen so only one person enters. Then I fill the human excreta in buckets with brooms and pass it to a guy standing on the top of the tank who will throw it out. It gets difficult to breathe after a while so I take a short break and come up to the mouth of the sewer or septic tank so that I don’t die by breathing in the poisonous gas from the waste. It generally takes 10-12 hours to empty a 10-foot-deep tank.”

They get 500 rupees ($6) for the potentially fatal task.  “Yes, we have lost a few friends to the job’s hazards but what can we do?” he asks. “When there is work, we have to be available, as this is how we earn our living. An extra ₹500 can help support our families.”

Under the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, India banned the employment of manual scavengers, but the stigma and discrimination towards the communities that do the job still exists. 

India, along with Pakistan and Bangladesh, is among the few countries where manual scavenging continues despite being officially (and repeatedly) banned, lately by the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013. The Act prohibits the employment people as manual scavengers and provides provisions for their rehabilitation.

While New Delhi says this practice has been eliminated “almost completely”, there are still over 7.7 million Indians who are still forced to clean human excreta manually. Despite the ban, the grim reality is that human scavengers, forced to manually clean drains and septic tanks without protective gear or machinery, fall prey to their job’s perils, with many unaccounted deaths. 

A 2020 study titled ‘Manual Scavenging in India: Literature review’, “according to Census (2011), there are 794,390 dry latrines in India where human excreta are cleaned manually; and in addition, there are 1,314,652 toilets where human excreta are flushed into open drains, which are again manually cleaned by individuals from the Dalit community.”

Deaths and health issues 

According to Safai Karamchari Andolan (SKA), the Sanitation Workers‘ Movement, which has over 6,000 volunteers in 24 states of India pressuring for workers’ rights, manual scavengers die every year in the sewers due to exposure to poisonous gases and pathogens. The highest number of deaths were reported in Gujarat (135), followed by Tamil Nadu (73) and Uttar Pradesh (37).

However, different government bodies quote different numbers on deaths. 

The National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) says 631 people have died in the country while cleaning sewers and septic tanks in the last 10 years. Federal Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Ramdas Athawale said in August that despite 732 of India’s 766 districts declaring themselves free from manual scavenging, 453 individuals have died cleaning sewers and septic tanks since 2014.

Bezwada Wilson, the SKA’s national convener, told RT over phone that there was hardly any data collection by the government on deaths during manual scavenging. The group’s own records, maintained since 1993, show higher numbers. 

“As per our records, around 2,360 have lost their lives since 1993,” he said. “The majority of deaths occurred between 2010 and 2024, as there was better monitoring and data collection. The government does not maintain proper data and they keep denying these deaths in Parliament.”

“Because it is the marginalized castes that die, the government does not attach importance,” he added.  

It does not stop at social discrimination. Because of frequent (and sometimes regular) exposure to toxic gases and germs from the gutters, the lifespan of the people from these communities is seldom more than 45 years, SKA’s website states. 

A study by the Babasaheb Ambedkar Research and Training Institute (BARTI) in Pune states that manual scavengers face both mental and physical health problems due to the job’s derogatory nature and because of regular direct contact with human excreta. 

“Manual contact with excreta exposes them to various diseases like skin infections, rotting of fingers and limbs, tuberculosis, hepatitis, leptospirosis, helicobacter and nausea,” it says.

The study adds that some manual scavengers lose their appetite after exposure to excreta as seeing the waste kills their urge to eat. 

“Most women from the manual scavenging communities tend to be addicted to chewing tobacco (gutka), and the men addicted to liquor, in an attempt to diminish the repulsive nature of their work and beat back their state of hopelessness,” it says. 

Lack of government will

India’s 2024-25 federal budget allocated 135.39 billion rupees ($1.584 billion) to the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, an increase of 37% from the previous financial year. But the Self-Employment Scheme for the Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers, which previously had an allocation, did not feature in the budget. 

According to SKA’s Wilson, before 2013, the budget was 5.7 billion rupees ($67.74 million), however after 2014 it was reduced drastically to 100 million rupees ($1.17 million) and then fell further, to 50 million rupees ($590,000). „This time they have not allocated any money which shows the government is not serious about the issue,” he added.

To eliminate hazardous cleaning, stop the deaths of sewer and septic tank workers and ensure their safety and dignity, India’s social justice and empowerment ministry and the housing and urban affairs ministry have formulated a plan called “National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem” (NAMASTE). It will be implemented in 4,800 urban areas around the country over the course of three years, with an outlay of 3.497 billion rupees ($40.9 million).

The question is whether or not this plan will be enough to totally eliminate this practice. 

“Before implementing any program there needs to be a proper enumeration of the number of manual scavengers, their deaths, the possibility of mechanization and other bigger problems,” Wilson said. He insists that the government needs to lay down new sewer lines in the old pre-independence colonies that still use dry latrines and septic tank systems. „This is a part of urban planning and only the government can undertake such a huge project.”