Danger in the sewer: On India’s sewer cleaning deaths

Four sanitation workers lost their lives in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. They were cleaning a food-waste chamber at a hotel. The article does not provide further details about the immediate cause or the workers' employment arrangements.

The incident matters because dangerous cleaning is not limited to spaces labelled as sewers or septic tanks. Workers can still face foreseeable and largely preventable risks while entering waste chambers. The chamber's connection to food waste also shows how private establishments can become sites of hazardous sanitation work.

This death toll comes despite legislation, court orders, government programmes, and available mechanised technologies. Private contractors and municipal bodies are known to violate restrictions and hire undocumented daily-wage workers. The article therefore links the Ujjain deaths to a wider failure to prevent risky entry, formalise employment, and make establishments accountable.

Hazardous sewer or septic-tank cleaning involves workers entering those spaces to clean them. The danger comes from exposure to noxious gases, even when the space looks empty. The work remains hazardous because entry itself can create a fatal situation.

Indian law has distinguished this activity from manual scavenging since 2013. Manual scavenging refers to manually cleaning excreta from insanitary latrines. Hazardous sewer and septic-tank cleaning concerns entry into those underground or enclosed systems, rather than the specific removal of excreta from insanitary latrines.

The distinction has practical consequences. Since at least 2021, the government has maintained that manual cleaning of excreta from insanitary latrines has been eliminated. Yet workers continue entering sewers, septic tanks, and other waste chambers. Treating the two problems separately can obscure continuing risks unless authorities inspect municipalities and private establishments and enforce safer, mechanised methods.

The article gives several official counts for deaths during sewer and septic-tank work. Parliament and National Commission for Safai Karamcharis data record 859 deaths between 2014 and 2025, 498 from 2019 to mid-2026, and 332 across 18 States and Union Territories from 2021 to 2026. Another count records 1,350 deaths between 1993 and 2025.

These figures cover different periods and scopes, so they should not simply be added together. They all show that reported deaths have not moved towards zero. The article says the numbers concern workers who died on jobs involving sewers and septic tanks.

The official figures may still understate the problem. The Safai Karamchari Andolan has repeatedly alleged severe under-reporting. Private contractors may hire undocumented daily-wage workers, making deaths harder to trace and liability easier to evade. Weak inspection and inconsistent reporting can therefore hide the scale of continuing hazards.

The central danger is invisible. Workers entering a sewer, septic tank, or food-waste chamber can encounter noxious gases. A space may appear empty, but its visual condition does not reveal whether the air is dangerous. The article describes these deaths as foreseeable and largely preventable.

This is why the risk cannot be solved simply by asking workers to enter carefully. In Dr. Balram Singh (2023), the Court required outsourced sewer-cleaning contracts not to entail workers entering sewers. The ruling also raised compensation for deaths to ₹30 lakh per worker.

The continuing deaths show that rules are not enough without enforcement. Private contractors and municipal bodies still violate restrictions and use undocumented daily-wage workers. The article argues that authorities should reduce situations requiring entry, expand mechanised cleaning, inspect public and private establishments, and ensure workers have formal employment and social security.

India's legal protections include the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013 and its Rules. The law restricts manual cleaning, while the Supreme Court has strengthened protections through Safai Karamchari Andolan (2014) and Dr. Balram Singh (2023). The Court required safer outsourced contracts and raised death compensation to ₹30 lakh per worker.

The Court also ordered an end to manual sewer cleaning in four metropolitan cities in 2025. Bengaluru and Hyderabad followed a year later with notices to 15 Chief Secretaries for disobeying the 2023 order, including on compensation. These measures establish duties for government systems and contracted operators.

Enforcement must involve administrative bodies inspecting municipalities and private establishments, as well as municipal bodies and private contractors following the law. The article says these actors are known to violate restrictions. Without inspections, documentation, and consequences, legal protections remain promises rather than working safeguards.

Private contractors and municipal bodies can avoid responsibility by hiring workers informally. The article says they use undocumented daily-wage workers for restricted manual cleaning. Because these workers lack documented employment ties, the organisations ordering or arranging the work can make accountability harder to establish.

This practice also undermines compensation and social protection. If a worker dies inside a sewer, septic tank, or waste chamber, incomplete records may obscure who hired the person and who controlled the job. Contractors and municipal bodies can then evade liability while continuing work that the 2013 Act and Rules restrict.

The article identifies formalising employment as essential to eliminating deaths. Workers need documented jobs and improved social security across caste lines. Enforcement must also reach the municipalities and private establishments that commission cleaning. Otherwise, mechanised-cleaning rules and compensation orders may exist on paper while informal workers continue facing the danger.

Mechanisation matters because it can reduce or remove situations in which workers enter sewers, septic tanks, or waste chambers. The article says the state's basic error is maximising administrative assistance, such as distributing kits, rather than minimising situations that could lead to deaths. Equipment may support workers, but it does not change the underlying need to enter a hazardous space.

Formal employment adds accountability. Private contractors and municipal bodies currently hire undocumented daily-wage workers and evade liability. Documented employment can identify who hired workers and make compensation and enforcement more workable. Social security extends protection across caste lines, especially because historically marginalised castes are overrepresented in these jobs.

The National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem scheme has also faced a gap between aims and outcomes. Eliminating deaths requires fewer dangerous entries, reliable mechanised systems, inspections, and enforceable contracts. It also requires authorities to treat prevention as the priority, rather than only distributing support after risky work continues.