Officially, no one dies of manual scavenging. People keep dying in sewers.
This is a story about a definition — and the people who fall through the gap inside it.
In 2025 the government told Parliament that no deaths had been reported "due to manual scavenging" and that states reported no such practice. Yet official figures also record 63 deaths from hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks in 2023 and 52 in 2024.
How can both be true? Because of wording. The 2013 law bans "hazardous cleaning" without protective gear but doesn’t fully outlaw humans entering sewers and tanks — so a death cleaning a sewer can be classified as something other than a "manual scavenging" death.
The human number
By one compilation, at least 1,276 sanitation workers have died cleaning sewers and septic tanks since 2001. Activists such as Bezwada Wilson of the Safai Karmachari Andolan say even these figures are undercounts.
Almost all the dead are from marginalised caste communities — which is why this is a question of dignity, not just labour safety.
The fix already has a name
The government’s own NAMASTE scheme (2023-24) aims to mechanise sanitation so no human enters a sewer. The constructive demand is simple: fund and enforce it, count every death honestly, and stop arguing about the label while people suffocate in tanks.
Sources · Free to verify
This is a sourced explainer built on public data — not original reporting. Every figure traces to a source above.