Clean City, Dirty Truth: The Invisible Suffering of Bhopal’s Sanitation Workers Behind the 7-Star Swachh Bharat Glory

Bhopal- On 17th July 2025, Bhopal , the capital of Madhya Pradesh was declared the second cleanest city in India in the Swachh Survekshan 2024-25 rankings, in the category of municipalities with populations above 10 lakhs. The city also achieved the status of a 7-Star Garbage Free City and was certified as a Water Plus City under the Swachh Bharat Mission. But while the city celebrates these achievements, the lives of those who made this success possible remain trapped in neglect, poverty, and exploitation.

Behind every clean street and every garbage-free locality are thousands of sanitation workers, most of whom belong to historically oppressed castes, working in dangerous, dehumanising conditions. Despite being essential to the city’s public health and image, their rights are being exploited by the very Municipal corporation and are treated as disposable.

“We are human too, but nobody seems to care about our condition.”

This was the quiet pain in the voice of a sanitation worker I met in Sargam Basti, a slum in Bhopal that many safai workers, call home. He did not want to be named, but his words carried the weight of generations of injustice. “The Bhopal Municipal Corporation pays me ₹8,200 per month. I have three small children who go to school. My wife manages the household. We need milk, sometimes medicine, school fees . How are we supposed to manage everything with this amount?”

There was no anger in his voice. Just exhaustion. The exhaustion of someone who rises at 4 a.m. every day to clean the city yet cannot afford to fix the leaking roof of his jhuggi.

He added, “Sometimes I wonder , even if my children study hard and get educated, will their life be any different from mine? But then I think, maybe their fate can change. That hope is what gets me out of bed every morning.”

In another home nearby, a woman shared her family’s daily struggles: “My husband works in the municipal corporation as a sanitation worker. He earns approx. ₹10,000 a month, but that’s not enough to run the house. I have to go to two or three houses every day to wash dishes and clean floors. We both work from morning to evening, yet we still can’t make ends meet.” “We’re always in debt. Sometimes it’s school fees, sometimes medicine, sometimes basic groceries. There’s always something.”

These are not isolated stories. There are hundreds of families like theirs, living in slum areas (jhuggi-bastis)around Bhopal. Ironically, they clean the city every day but live in places with no proper sanitation, surrounded by garbage, open drains, and the very unhygienic conditions they are hired to remove from public view. Their suffering is undocumented and unacknowledged.

Workers Who Clean the City but Are Denied a Life of Dignity

The Swachh Bharat Mission, despite its visible outcomes in city like Bhopal, has failed to protect the rights and welfare of the very people implementing it on the ground. Sanitation workers, many of whom are hired on contract, are denied basic facilities , no health insurance, no safety gear, no permanent employment status, and no social security.

The BMC continues to employ them at minimum wages, sometimes through third-party contractors. These are not just labour issues , they are structural caste injustices. The fact that the majority of these workers come from Dalit communities is not a coincidence. It reflects a deeply rooted caste division of labour, where certain communities are still forced into degrading work with no safety net, no voice, and no visibility.

Wages Below Legal Minimums

The injustice becomes even more stark when we compare their earnings to the Collector Rate, the minimum wage set by the District Collector for daily wage laborers in Madhya Pradesh. These rates, revised in April 2025, are meant to act as a benchmark for fair wages.

According to the revised rates:

• Skilled workers: ₹570.93 per day or ₹12,294/month

• Highly skilled workers: ₹633.43 per day or ₹13,919/month

Despite this, sanitation workers employed under the Bhopal Municipal Corporation, who risk their lives and health in one of the most physically demanding public roles, are being paid on minimum wages and on temporary basis. According to the Urban Administration and Development Department and the provisions under the Municipal Corporation and Municipal Council Acts, there is a clear mention of providing special financial allowances to sanitation workers. However, in practice, no such special allowance is given by the municipal corporations. This is despite the fact that sanitation workers carry out the most hazardous and lowest-paid work, putting their health and future at risk to fulfill the responsibility of keeping cities clean. This isn’t just a legal failure. It’s a moral one.

Many of these workers are kept on temporary contracts without any form of health insurance, paid leave, or job security. Several suffer from occupational illnesses like skin diseases, respiratory issues, tuberculosis, and injuries from unsafe waste-handling practices. But because they remain undocumented or informal workers, no health surveys or welfare policies reach them. Ironically, while the Swachh Bharat Mission mandates regular audits and rankings of cleanliness infrastructure, there is no nationwide mechanism to track the conditions or health of sanitation workers. Their labour remains essential, but invisible.

Clean Streets, Dirty Systems

The Mayor of Bhopal, Malti Rai, stated that the city’s achievements were made possible due to the cooperation and hard work of BMC staff and safai mitras. But appreciation means little when the reality on the ground is so bleak.

If sanitation workers are indeed the backbone of the Swachh Bharat success story, why are they still fighting for basic survival? They deserve fair wages, permanent employment, safe housing, free health care, and access to education for their children.

The conversation around Universal Basic Income (UBI) becomes extremely relevant here. If every individual had access to a guaranteed minimum income to meet basic needs, these workers wouldn’t have to depend on exploitative, unstable wages. ₹10,000 a month is not just low , it’s unlivable in the face of rising living costs and inflation. Yet in reality, many sanitation workers in Bhopal earn as low as ₹8,000–₹10,000/month, sometimes without job security, protective gear, or even timely payment. This is not just underpayment, this is systemic exploitation."

“If India were to implement a Universal Basic Income or even follow the concept of a living wage as per international labour standards, no worker especially one doing highrisk, essential work should earn less than ₹15,000–₹18,000 per month in a city like Bhopal.”

According to a 2021 estimate by Oxfam and labour economists, the minimum amount required for dignified urban survival is around ₹500 per day, i.e., ₹15,000/month. For physically risky and caste-stigmatized jobs like sanitation work, this should be higher, around ₹20,000–₹25,000/month, considering health risks, caste discrimination, and lack of benefits.

Pratap Karosia, Chairman of the State Safai Kamgar Commission, told in a conversation that the condition of Safai Karamcharis in the state is extremely worrying. They have to work at very low wages, due to which it has become difficult to support their families. Karosia said that the government can make a provision of special allowance to improve the economic condition of Safai Karamcharis, so that they can get some relief.

He also said that Safai Karamcharis come from the most backward and deprived class among the Scheduled Castes. In such a situation, it becomes the responsibility of the government to give them special assistance on humanitarian grounds under the principles of social justice. Karosia said that if governments want to respect constitutional values, then they will have to take concrete and compassionate steps to improve the condition of Safai Karamcharis.

Sanitation Without Justice Is a Violation of the Constitution

When sanitation workers do not receive adequate wages for their hard work, it is not just economic injustice but also a gross violation of the right to live with dignity enshrined in our Constitution. This situation directly hits the basic constitutional values of equality, dignity and social justice.

If the living conditions of the workers who stand at the forefront of keeping the society clean and safe are degrading and unsafe, it reflects the moral failure of the system. When the Constitution promises equality and dignity to every citizen, paying sanitation workers less than the minimum wage is a breach of that promise. A city that celebrates its cleanliness rankings must also look at the dirty injustice buried beneath them where those who clean the city live in filth, earn a pittance, and remain invisible.