Decoding The Huge Disparity Among Sanitation Workers in India

Khapachhi, the bamboo stick used by manual scavengers to clean the sewers, is the costliest tool for most of them. According to Safai Karamchari Andolan around 7,70,000 people are sent into the sewers in India. However, the government claims manual scavenging is prohibited in India. This month alone, 11 workers lost their lives while cleaning the sewers. There is a huge disparity between government workers and private cleaners. While government employees refuse to clean sewers as they get fixed salary, the private sewer cleaners have no other job opportunity other than this.