Within a few days of the Supreme Court’s ban on manual scavenging and sewage cleaning in six major metropolitan cities, three workers died today at the Bantala Leather Complex near Kolkata after drowning while cleaning sewage and chemical waste, allegedly without protective gear.
The Supreme Court of India on Tuesday passed directions banning manual scavenging and manual sewer cleaning in six metropolitan cities in a writ petition seeking the eradication of manual scavenging in the county.
“I lost my son, and none of these people are doing anything. From the police to the Jal Board officials, no one has taken any action. My son died, and his accused roam free.”
The tragic deaths of four sanitation workers in separate incidents in Delhi have ignited outrage and brought renewed attention to the persistent neglect of safety standards in the manual scavenging sector.
Between the Interim Budget on February 1, 2024, and the Union Budget on July 23, 2024, 43 sanitation workers died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks, yet neither manual scavenging nor sewer fatalities were mentioned in the Union Budget 2024, said Bezwada Wilson, national convenor of Safai Karmachari Andolan.