Safai Karmacharis from across the country staged a protest at Jantar Mantar (New Delhi) against the absolute insensitivity of the government to the situation of workers trapped in the cycle of discrimination and untouchability of manual scavenging.
Groundxero | March 25, 2025
Hundreds of sewage and sanitation workers and activists from across the country staged a protest at Jantar Mantar (New Delhi) on 25th March 2025 to highlight the persistence of the caste atrocity of manual scavenging and sewerage deaths and raised their voice against the absolute insensitivity of the government to the situation of the safai karmacharis or sewage workers trapped in the cycle of discrimination and untouchability of manual scavenging. They had only one slogan, only one demand, #STOP_KILLING_US!
The protest was organized by the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA) to expose the government’s lies in Parliament about data on deaths in sewer-septic tanks. The SKA accused the Government of India (GOI) of turning its back on the Safai Karmacharis and refusing to see their struggle against the forces of caste and untouchability.
The GOI claims to have spent hundreds of crores to build more than 110 million toilets across the country in rural and urban areas. Yet, there are dry latrines and women still forced into manual scavenging and cleaning dry latrines in addition to cleaning open drains, railway tracks, open defecation and insanitary latrines. Dry latrines still exist in many states and they employ Safai Karmachari women to clean them. Safai Karmachari Andolan said that there are dry latrines in 36 districts in the states of UP, MP, Bihar, Jharkhand and J & K.
The Self-Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS) has been replaced by the National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) from 2023-24 with Rs 97.41 crore allocation. Around 34,800 Urban Local Bodies are to be covered to benefit about one lakh sewers and septic tank workers with the budgetary outlay of Rs 350 crore during the next three years up to 2025-26. Yet, people are still getting killed in sewer and septic tanks even today.
The Safai Karmachari Andolan claimed that only in the last five years 419 Safai Karmacharis have been reported as killed in sewer and septic tanks. Despite this the Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment and the GOI deny the continuing practice of manual scavenging, prevalence of dry latrines and sewerage deaths. The minister repeatedly reports to the parliament that there is no manual scavenging in the country. It pointed out that just last week on 16th March 2025, three persons were forced to enter a manhole by the Delhi Jal Board in New Friends Colony and one person was killed. The other two persons are battling for their lives in the hospital.
The government is repeatedly and deliberately fudging data on sewerage workers deaths and making false and misleading statements. Outraged at the government’s continual denial of the actual number of deaths, SKA had given a call for this ‘Stop Killing Us’ campaign in May 2022 against the government’s apathy toward sewer-septic tank deaths. Since then, youth, women, men and children associated with sanitation workers’ groups have been demonstrating in different parts of the country.
SKA asks how the atrocity of manual scavenging and deaths in sewer and septic tanks will be stopped if the government that is responsible to protect workers is only interested in protecting the perpetrators of these caste atrocities? SKA called this insensitive attitude of the GOI absolutely shameful and termed it as continuation of violence against the Safai Karmachari community.
All Images courtesy of Facebook page of Safai Karmachari Andolan