Deaths in sewers of Delhi: A poisonous truth of New India

New Delhi: In an era when India is talking about potentially achieving a five trillion economy and boasting of nuclear power, 12 sanitation workers have been suffocated to death since January this year while cleaning the sewer manually in the national capital. 

According to data collected by Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), a mass movement against manual scavenging, 431 people have died during the last five years while cleaning sewer and septic tanks manually. Most of the deaths have happened in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Delhi, UP, and Gujarat. 

Two basic facts need to be mentioned here. First, manual scavenging in India has been banned since 1993. Second, Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, amended in 2013, have included sewer and septic tank cleaning as manual scavenging.

Interestingly, on May 1, 2019, Labor Day, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal flagged off a fleet of 200 sewer cleaning machines.

“It is a historic day for Delhi to start this initiative and ensure the safety and dignity of human life. These machines will put an end to the practice of sanitation workers entering manholes and septic tanks for cleaning,” news reports quoted Kejriwal said then.

On 11 October 2024, Shrinath Soren, 28, and Ramasre Lal, 41, were sent to clean garbage inside a sewer line at a construction site at Pillanji village in south Delhi. Both fell unconscious after inhaling poisonous gases. 

Another worker, Bhupendra Singh, 29, went down to look for both of them but also fell unconscious. Singh and Lal couldn’t survive, and Soren was admitted to a hospital in critical condition.

”It is a farce,” feels” Bhasha Singh, the author of the book “Unseen: The Truth about India’s Manual Scavengers.“ 

People are dying in the national capital also, as modern technology is only showcased in advertisements. The ground reality is different. Political will is missing.

This May, a 32-year-old man died after inhaling toxic gases while cleaning a sewer outside a mall in Delhi’s Rohini Sector-10.

According to state-wise data tabled by the ministry in the Loksabha in April 2022, 971 people died in sewer and septic tanks between the years 1993 and April 2022.

97 deaths had been reported in Delhi during the period.

Tamil Nadu witnessed 214 deaths, while Gujarat (156) and UP (106) were also among the top three in casualties.

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Every year there are news reports about new technology that promise eradication of manual scavenging. Still, people are getting killed even in the national capital. 

If these so-called modern technologies are so affected, then why are people getting killed in gas chambers of human excreta or industrial waste?

Three years ago, IIT-Madras and Solinas Integrity, an IIT-M-incubated startup, in coordination with the SKA, developed a robot called HomoSEP.

According to the IIT-Madras website, HomoSEP,’ a robot developed by the institute’s researchers to eliminate manual scavenging in India, is all set for field deployment.

In the press release, Professor Prabhu Rajagopal, Centre for Nondestructive Evaluation, who leads the team of inventors at IIT-M, said, “The septic tank is a poisonous environment, filled with semi-solid and semi-fluid human faecal material that makes up about two-thirds of the tank. Hundreds of deaths are reported every year across India due to manual scavenging in septic tanks despite bans and prohibitory orders. The HomoSEP project is unique for the way it has brought together the key stakeholders, including the university (our team), NGO, industry CSR, and start-up, to develop a solution to an urgent and pressing social problem. The problem is large and complex, and we hope that our effort serves as an inspiration for others to join in the push.”

However, Bezwada Wilson, SKA’s national convenor and 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award winner, had said during an interaction with this writer, There is no technology developed in India. Whatever we have, it is primarily technology devolved by ITT or in the form of some startup,” says Wilson. “That is not a solution. We are here talking about the problem of one hundred 40 crore people. This is not a problem with one house or two houses. So when you talk about the quantum of the problem being so big, there is one machine in Kerala, one machine in Karnataka, or elsewhere. This is the way the government is doing to counter the problem. You wanted to launch a rocket, and ISRO started it in the 1960s, and success came only after 1980. After 20 years and after so many failures, we got success. When you want to launch a new technology or adopt a developing technology, it takes a lot of time.”

(The writer is an independent investigative journalist.)