Manual Scavenging in India: Why Workers Are Still Dying Despite the Law
Updated: Sep 7
There is something deeply uncomfortable about the way India talks about cleanliness. We celebrate spotless railway stations, new toilets, mechanised sweeping machines and campaigns for a “clean India”.
Yet behind that public image, there are still workers who enter sewers and septic tanks where poisonous gases can kill them within minutes.
Manual scavenging has been prohibited by law for years. Hazardous manual cleaning of sewers and septic tanks is also prohibited. And yet, people continue to die while doing precisely that work.
The contradiction is difficult to explain away as an isolated failure.
In July 2026, the Union government told the Lok Sabha that 332 sanitation workers had died in 18 States and Union Territories between January 2021 and June 2026 while undertaking hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks.
The same parliamentary reply said that 193 FIRs had been registered during the preceding five years against agencies and officials responsible for hazardous manual cleaning.
These numbers should not merely produce another round of outrage.
They should force a more uncomfortable question: Why does a practice that has been illegal for more than a decade continue to find space in India's sanitation system?
Why Does Manual Scavenging Continue in India Despite the Law?
India's first major law on the issue, the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, attempted to prohibit the employment of manual scavengers and the construction of dry latrines.
But the legislation had serious limitations. Its definition of the problem was narrower, and sewer and septic-tank workers were not adequately protected within its framework.
The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 was therefore an important shift. It not only prohibited employment as a manual scavenger but also addressed the rehabilitation of affected persons and their families.
The Act prohibits the employment or engagement of people as manual scavengers and separately prohibits employing or engaging anyone for hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks.
The law also places responsibilities on local authorities and other agencies to use modern technology for cleaning sewers and septic tanks rather than relying on human beings to enter dangerous spaces.
The punishment provisions are not symbolic either. Under the 2013 law, a person or agency found employing or engaging a manual scavenger can face imprisonment and a fine.
The government told Parliament in July 2026 that Section 8 provides punishment of up to two years' imprisonment, a fine of up to ₹1 lakh, or both.
Yet the existence of a law has not automatically created compliance. That is where India's real problem lies.
Sanitation Worker Deaths Reveal the Reality of Manual Scavenging in India
On June 26, 2026, three workers died after entering a septic tank at a factory in Delhi's Mundka area.
According to an NDTV report, the factory owner and two contractors were arrested and a case was registered under the Manual Scavenging Act and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
The incident was not an example of some ancient practice surviving in a remote village. It happened in the national capital, in an industrial setting, in a country that has invested heavily in sanitation infrastructure and technology.
A similar contradiction appeared in Nagpur in 2026. Reports based on civic data said that a substantial proportion of drains were still being cleaned manually, while the city struggled with insufficient mechanised equipment.
Another report said hundreds of sanitation workers continued to enter manholes for de-choking operations.
These examples expose the central weakness of India's approach: the law prohibits dangerous human entry, but the sanitation system often continues to be designed around the assumption that somebody will eventually enter the drain.
The worker becomes the final piece of equipment. And that is unacceptable.
The Caste System Behind Manual Scavenging in India
For generations, sanitation work involving human excreta has been disproportionately forced upon communities placed at the bottom of India's caste hierarchy. The 2013 legislation itself recognized that manual scavenging was connected with an “iniquitous caste system”.
This matters because the solution cannot simply be to provide gloves, masks or protective equipment and send workers into the same dangerous spaces.
The objective should be to eliminate the need for human entry wherever technology can perform the task.
Safety equipment is important, but it cannot become an excuse for preserving hazardous work.
A worker wearing a helmet is still being exposed to danger if the job itself can be done by a machine.
What the Supreme Court Has Said About Manual Scavenging
The judiciary has repeatedly made it clear that sanitation cannot come at the cost of human dignity.
In Safai Karamchari Andolan v. Union of India, the Supreme Court directed compensation for families of workers who died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks. The compensation framework was subsequently strengthened.
In Balram Singh v. Union of India (2023), the Supreme Court increased the compensation for deaths during sewer or septic-tank cleaning to ₹30 lakh. The Court also dealt with rehabilitation and compensation for those suffering permanent and other disabilities arising from hazardous sewer cleaning.
This was an important judicial intervention because it moved the conversation away from treating sewer deaths as unfortunate “accidents”.
A worker should not have to die before the State recognizes that something went fundamentally wrong.
Why Government Action Has Not Eliminated Manual Scavenging in India
It would be unfair to say that nothing has changed.
The government has introduced the National Action for Mechanized Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE), launched in 2023-24, with the stated objective of creating a safer and more dignified sanitation ecosystem.
The programme includes profiling of sewer and septic-tank workers, occupational safety measures, mechanisation and rehabilitation. Waste pickers were also brought within its scope in 2024.
The government has also conducted surveys to identify manual scavengers. Earlier surveys conducted in 2013 and 2018 identified 58,098 eligible manual scavengers.
But official statistics need to be interpreted carefully.
The government has said recent district-level surveys have not reported people engaged in manual scavenging. At the same time, deaths continue to be reported during hazardous sewer and septic-tank cleaning. Civil society organizations have also challenged official claims that manual scavenging has disappeared entirely.
Part of the difficulty comes from terminology.
There is a legal distinction between manual scavenging, as specifically defined under the 2013 Act, and hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks. But from the perspective of a family that loses its breadwinner inside a septic tank, the distinction can appear painfully artificial.
The State must therefore measure not only how many people are formally identified as manual scavengers, but also how many workers are entering hazardous sanitation spaces, under whose authority, through which contractors and with what safety arrangements.
Otherwise, the country risks becoming “manual-scavenging free” on paper while sanitation workers continue to die in underground chambers.
The Contractor System Needs Scrutiny
One of the most persistent weaknesses in sanitation governance is the chain of responsibility.
Municipal bodies frequently outsource sanitation operations to contractors.
A local authority may argue that a worker was employed by a private contractor. The contractor may blame a supervisor. The supervisor may say that the worker entered voluntarily.
The result can be a dangerous diffusion of responsibility. The law must work in the opposite direction. If a municipal body contracts out sanitation work, outsourcing responsibility should not mean outsourcing accountability.
Every contract involving sewer or septic-tank cleaning should clearly identify who is responsible for mechanisation, worker training, emergency equipment, supervision and compliance with the law.
Authorities should maintain digital records of workers, machines and hazardous operations, making it possible to establish responsibility after an accident.
Most importantly, prosecution should not stop at low-level workers or contractors when evidence points towards negligence higher up the administrative chain.
Can Technology End Hazardous Manual Cleaning in India?
India has no shortage of technological ambition.
Robotic systems, suction machines, sewer-cleaning equipment, remote cameras and mechanized desludging technologies already exist. The problem is availability, affordability, maintenance and last-mile deployment.
A large municipal corporation may possess machines while a smaller municipality or village administration does not. Narrow lanes, old sewer networks and poorly designed infrastructure can also make mechanization difficult.
But “difficult” cannot become synonymous with “impossible”.
Government procurement should therefore prioritise sanitation technology suited to India's diverse urban and rural conditions. Local bodies should have access to shared fleets of mechanised equipment, particularly in smaller towns that cannot afford their own machinery.
The next generation of sanitation planning must begin with a simple question:
Can this job be done without a human being entering the sewer? If the answer is yes, human entry should not be the default option.
Why Rehabilitation Is Essential to Ending Manual Scavenging
Stopping manual scavenging also requires creating an alternative livelihood.
A worker who has spent years cleaning sewers cannot simply be told to stop and then left without income.
The rehabilitation component of the 2013 law and schemes such as NAMASTE therefore matter enormously. Workers need skills, alternative employment, access to credit, education for their children, health support and social security.
The transition should be treated as an economic transformation, not charity.
The children of sanitation workers should not inherit the occupation simply because their parents had no other economic choice.
India needs a national sanitation-safety framework that brings together the Union government, States, municipalities, contractors and worker organizations.
First, every hazardous sewer and septic-tank operation should be registered and traceable. Second, mechanised cleaning should become the default, with human entry permitted only under legally defined exceptional circumstances and strict safety protocols.
Third, municipal bodies must be held accountable for contractors working on their behalf. Fourth, the government should create a single, regularly updated national database of sewer and septic-tank workers, accidents, deaths, prosecutions and compensation payments.
Fifth, compensation ordered by courts should reach victims' families quickly, without forcing already devastated households into years of administrative struggle.
Sixth, rehabilitation must be linked to stable livelihoods, education and social protection, rather than being reduced to a one-time financial package.
And finally, India must confront the caste prejudice that has allowed sanitation work to remain invisible.
The country cannot claim that sanitation is a symbol of development while treating the people who make that sanitation possible as disposable.
India's challenge is not merely to ban manual scavenging again. The law has already been spoken. The real challenge is to make the law visible in the lives of the people it was written to protect.
A clean city should not be built on the death of the person who cleans it. That is the standard India must now hold itself to.
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