Dalit Adivasi Shakti Adhikar Manch (DASAM) expresses concern over the continuing deaths of sanitation workers across India during hazardous manual cleaning of sewers, septic tanks, Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs), open drains, manholes, and other confined sanitation spaces, reflecting a persisting systemic failure of governance, enforcement, and accountability in addressing caste-based forced labour in sanitation work.

Despite the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013; repeated Supreme Court directions mandating complete mechanisation of sewer and septic tank cleaning; and constitutional guarantees of dignity, equality, and the right to life, sanitation workers continue to be forced into toxic spaces without safety equipment, gas detectors, protective gear, or emergency support systems, resulting in a continuing pattern of preventable deaths that exposes the gap between law and implementation.

Between February and July 2026 alone, DASAM has documented at least 66 sanitation worker deaths across India. These figures represent only reported and verifiable cases, and the actual number is likely higher due to widespread underreporting, informal employment structures, and the systematic misclassification of deaths in official records.

In 2024, 116 sanitation workers lost their lives while engaged in hazardous sewer and septic tank cleaning. In 2025, nearly 42 workers died during the first six months of the year alone. Together, these figures indicate that around 158 sanitation workers died between 2024 and mid-2025.

Recent government data presented in Parliament acknowledges 332 deaths of sanitation workers from January 2021 to June 2026, as reported in Lok Sabha proceedings. However, DASAM asserts that this data does not indicate the actual scale of the crisis on the ground. The discrepancy is not merely due to missing data but arises from a structural and institutional practice of misclassification. In most cases where sanitation workers die inside sewers or septic tanks, the deaths are not recorded under the Manual Scavenging Act. Instead, police reports, post-mortem records, and media narratives repeatedly classify these incidents as “accidents”, “drowning”, “industrial mishaps”, “negligence cases”, or “toxic gas exposure deaths”. This classification creates a disconnect between official government records and independent documentation. At the same time, deaths occurring in rural and remote areas remain invisible to both the media and government institutions, contributing to their systematic underdocumentation and underreporting.

Once such terminology is used, the legal identity of the incident changes, and the case is effectively removed from the category of manual scavenging deaths, leading to a systematic erasure of legal responsibility, allowing contractors, municipal bodies, private institutions, and public authorities to avoid prosecution under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, as well as the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

DASAM strongly states that this is not a statistical error but a deliberate and structural invisibilisation of caste-based occupational deaths through administrative classification. DASAM’s field investigations reveal that a large number of deaths officially recorded as workplace accidents are, in fact, cases of hazardous manual scavenging.

Between February and June 2026 alone, 55 sanitation workers died across India, including the following: 20 deaths in March, 10 deaths in April, 6 deaths in May and 18 deaths in June

However, in many of these cases, FIRs were not registered under the Manual Scavenging Act and instead were filed under general negligence or accidental death provisions. This legal dilution has serious consequences, as it weakens criminal accountability and prevents families from accessing rightful compensation and rehabilitation.

DASAM’s field verification has repeatedly shown that initial official narratives often differ from ground realities. In one of the recent cases near Faridabad, early reports described the incident as an accidental fall of construction workers into a sewage treatment plant. However, upon investigation, DASAM found that the workers were in fact engaged in cleaning the STP without any protective equipment and died due to toxic gas inhalation. Such cases demonstrate how initial misreporting becomes a permanent official record, erasing the fact that these were preventable manual scavenging deaths.

February–July 2026: Documented Pattern of Deaths Across India

February 2026

Mumbai (Goregaon): 1 worker died due to toxic gas exposure during sewer cleaning

March 2026 (20 deaths)

Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi

April 2026 (10 deaths)

Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra

May 2026 (6 deaths)

Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra

June 2026 (18 deaths)

Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi

July 2026 (11 deaths)

Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand

This distribution clearly shows that hazardous manual sanitation work is not limited to any single region but is a nationwide structural practice spanning urban and semi-urban India across both public and private sectors.

July 2026 witnessed another series of entirely preventable deaths, reinforcing the failure of mechanisation policies and safety enforcement.

2 July – Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh: One sanitation worker died after inhaling toxic gases inside a sewage chamber.

8 July – Madhya Pradesh: Three workers died in two separate sewer and septic tank cleaning incidents.

11 July – Bhubaneswar, Odisha: Two workers died inside a septic tank due to suspected toxic gas exposure.

14 July – Noida, Uttar Pradesh: Shiva, a sanitation worker, died while cleaning a sewer in Sector-93B.

23 July – Dhanbad, Jharkhand: Two workers died while cleaning a septic tank.

26 July – Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh: Two workers died inside a sewage treatment plant tank when one worker entered to rescue the other, once again highlighting the recurring and well-documented “rescue-chain” pattern of multiple fatalities.

These incidents confirm that hazardous manual entry into sewers and septic tanks continues unabated despite legal prohibition and repeated Supreme Court directions mandating mechanisation and strict safety protocols.

Regardless of repeated government assurances regarding mechanisation, ground reality shows that manual entry into confined sanitation spaces remains widespread. Workers are routinely deployed without gas detectors, oxygen cylinders, safety harnesses, protective suits, or trained rescue teams. The continued reliance on manual labour in hazardous environments reflects a deep institutional failure of municipal bodies, contractors, and regulatory authorities, who continue to prioritise cost-cutting and informal labour arrangements over human life and legal compliance. This failure is further compounded by weak inspection systems, delayed FIR registration, and the absence of independent monitoring mechanisms, allowing violations to continue unchecked.

Structural Caste and Labour Exploitation

More than 92% of sanitation workers belong to Dalit (Scheduled Castes), Adivasi (Scheduled Tribes), and Other Backwards Classes, with a significant proportion being migrant workers employed through informal contractors, displaying an entrenched system of caste-based occupational segregation where historically marginalised communities are disproportionately forced into hazardous sanitation work.

These conditions violate fundamental constitutional protections, including:

Article 14 (Equality before law)

Article 17 (Abolition of Untouchability)

Article 21 (Right to Life and Dignity)

Article 23 (Prohibition of Forced Labour)

DASAM demands immediate and enforceable action, including:

Mandatory FIR registration under the Manual Scavenging Act, BNS, and SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in every case

Legal recognition of all sewer and septic tank deaths as manual scavenging deaths

Independent judicial enquiries into every death

Minimum compensation of Rs 30 lakh per victim family

Government employment and full rehabilitation for dependents

Complete mechanisation of cleaning operations

Nationwide audit of sanitation systems across public and private sectors

Ban on subcontracting hazardous sanitation work through informal contractors

Criminal prosecution of contractors, officials, and institutions responsible

Mandatory training for police, municipal authorities, and judiciary

Establishment of independent monitoring bodies at national and state levels

The continuing deaths of sanitation workers are not accidents but the outcome of a systemic failure that combines administrative denial, legal misclassification, weak enforcement, and entrenched caste discrimination. The gap between law and implementation has created a situation where preventable deaths are routinely normalised and statistically erased. Until every sewer and septic tank death is correctly recorded, legally prosecuted, and prevented through full mechanisation and strict enforcement, the constitutional promise of dignity, equality, and the right to life remains unfulfilled.

DASAM stands in unwavering solidarity with all affected families and demands immediate justice, accountability, and structural reform to end this continuing human rights crisis.