What is the issue?

• The recent deaths of six sewerage workers in Delhi form part of a continuing series of such deaths
• However, the response of the authorities indicates a new normality.

What are the underlying problems?

• Lack of data: Activists rue the lack of credible data on manual scavengers. Perhaps, otherwise, there would be compulsion to acknowledge that such work actually exists.
•  Poverty: Poverty forces these workers to descend almost bare-bodied into sewers full of filth and excreta, fully knowing that they may asphyxiate to death.
• Caste- Occupation nexus: There?s an entrenched association between the lowest-ranking castes and the work of cleaning other people?s waste. This is despite the Employment of ManualB Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, amended in 2013 that prohibits manual scavenging.
• Neglect: In the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the actual foot soldiers have got scant attention and even less financial resources than the broom-wielding celebrities and ministers.
• Even where workers have been given proper safety gear, they prefer to strip it off and work as is so heavy and unwieldy.

What are the recent developments?

• Socially conscious engineers of Kerala & Hyderabad have launched robotic machines for scavenging named “Bandicoot” & “sewer croc” respectively .
• Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board uses jetting machines & the Delhi government has aslo received action plans for mechanised cleaning of drains and sewers.

What should be done?

• There is a proposal to make “entrepreneurs” of safai karamcharis by providing them loans to buy and use sewer-cleaning machines. Since this could throw up severe difficulties for them, the state should buy these machines and employ people to operate them
•  Efforts should be taken to constantly experiment and finely hone lighter safety suits.
• Widespread mechanisation of sewer cleaning can prevent human beings from stepping into the death chamber.
• Hence, the government must harness the power of technology and innovation to prevent the cruel and unnecessary deaths of the sanitation workers