They lurk in dark corners as they work. And then they are sucked into the abyss of death. When they meet the eye of the passers-by on the street, they are only shunned. They clean dirty drains. They unclog your choked toilets. They fall ill so that you can live a healthy life. And then they inhale noxious gases of your sewage to die.

Malls. University campuses. Public hospitals. Residential colonies. Army cantonments. Police quarters. Delhi’s sewerage workers have marked their graves in every place imaginable.

Delhi figures on a dubious third position for most deaths of workers inside septic tanks – up to 87 – since the 1990s, after Tamil Nadu (219) and Gujarat (147). Across India, up to 813 deaths have been reported since 1993, until December 2017. 

Activists say these are figures compiled from publicly reported incidences and the number would soar higher considering that many incidents go unreported. What is heart-breaking is that of 813 deaths, families of only 152 workers who died have received compensation of any sort, varying from a few thousand rupees to Rs 10 lakh. In about seven of every eight deaths, there has been no relief of any sort to the family, the dead person being the sole bread-winner in most cases.

In 2003, up to 14 sewer workers had died in Delhi. Not much has changed. Laws have been framed and relegated to paper. Deaths continue unabated. Last year was the worst in a decade, with up to 12 sewer deaths reported in the capital. This included the death of a sewer worker inside a manhole in the state government-run Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital of north Delhi that enraged many.

***

On a sultry Sunday afternoon in August last year, the toilets in state-run Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) Hospital were stinking beyond measure.

The strong smell pouring out of unflushed urine and excreta was overbearing. In the ladies toilet on the ground floor, stinking blood-laced sanitary napkins jutted out from dustbins loaded to the brim. Dirty water was flowing out of the commodes in toilets on all floors.

“A sewer must have got choked somewhere, we were told,” said 25-year-old Bishen.

That Sunday afternoon, around 12.30 pm, he was summoned by Public Works Department (PWD) officials and asked to descend into the sewer to nail the problem.

Rishipal was sitting leisurely and sipping tea by the footpath near the campus. In his late forties, he was a strong-built man. Among his fellowmen, he was revered as Dronacharya, the legendary guru in the Mahabharata who trains the Pandavas and Kauravas alike in the art of war.

Rishipal’s “shishyas”, whom he had groomed to gain expertise in the acrobatic tactics required to step inside the sewers with ease and de-clog them, called him their “Drona”.

That fateful Sunday, 36-year-old Kiran happened to be chatting with Rishipal at the chai “tapri”, and decided to accompany him to the sewer line. It was more than 15 feet deep. Rishipal went inside the drain first.

Close to 15 minutes passed without any message from him.

Kiran, who had teamed up with Rishipal, went down to check. A few minutes later, there was no signal from Kiran as well. He had fallen unconscious on Rishipal.

That’s when Bishen decided to go in.

“I was close to 10 feet inside by then. My eyes started burning and I blacked out,” he said. “That sewer which became a grave for Rishipal had not been opened for a long time. There had been no regular maintenance. Only when the toilets started overflowing did the hospital authorities raise an alarm.”

That was four years ago. In spite of a host of laws and regulations designed to protect the rights of these workers, not very much has changed since then.

Rishipal, Kiran and Bishen had descended the sewer exactly in the way described in the study. Rishipal succumbed to the deadly cocktail of gases that gushed at him as he tried to unclog the sewer, 15 feet down. While the poisonous gases consumed him, Kiran and Bishen fell over him.

Bishen (left) and Kiran, who were gravely injured in the incident.

No help was at hand to rescue them. The fire brigade was later called to pull them out. It was too late to save Rishipal. They pulled out his corpse. Bishen and Kiran, gravely injured, were admitted to the ICU on 24×7 oxygen support.

The Gujarat High Court mandated (in Girish Patel Vs State of Gujarat 2006) that any sewerage-related operation should undergo compulsory testing of the gas and water in the drain.

The study noted: “Most respondents shared experiences about not using equipment such as gas measurement meters to determine the concentration of toxic gases before entering the sewer line. Such equipment is available at very few locations and is not used for routine measurements.”

“Rishipal had no clue that noxious gases would hit him hard,” said Kiran. “No gas measurement meter was employed to check the concentration of the poisonous gases.”

In most developed nations, manhole workers are protected in bunny suits to avoid contact with contaminated water and sport a respiratory apparatus; the sewers are well-lit, mechanically aerated with huge fans and therefore are not so oxygen-deficient. In Hong Kong, for example, a sewer worker, after adequate training, needs at least 15 licences and permits to enter a manhole, the study further noted.

Kiran stays in a congested basti, his 100 sqft room one of the hundreds in the winding lanes of Katra Gauri Shankar near Filmistan area of north Delhi. After his discharge, suffering from weakness and a sense of delirium, Kiran was relegated to a corner on a cot. He got up with great difficulty and sat down to chat. He has mild lingering pain in his head.

“I passed out inside the sewer. After that, I do not remember anything. I woke up in the ICU and vomited throughout the day. I was mourning Rishipal’s death. How did he die, why did I survive, questions, questions and more questions revolved in my mind,” Kiran said.

After Rishipal’s death, panic gripped the PWD department. A First Information Report (FIR) was filed with the local police, and a “baildaar” – Premsagar – was arrested and sent to judicial custody. The department suspended two engineers temporarily. A week passed and the inquiry came to a standstill. No further arrests were made.

Then Lieutenant Governor of Delhi – Najeeb Jung – passed a blanket order that no person will descend inside sewers. The result was dirty toilets – a cesspool of deadly infection lethal for already vulnerable immunocompromised patients who throng the public hospital’s corridors by the hordes.

The hospital sewer connects into a larger drain on the road that leads to a processing plant. “If the water had been flowing seamlessly in the drain, deadly gases would not have developed. We were sent in to clear the choke,” said Bishen.

PWD safety rules mandate that a sewer man must be equipped with a safety kit consisting of a mask, septic belt, gumboots and an oxygen cylinder along with an ambulance handy, whenever he descends into the drain.

A sewage worker dressed in safety gear provided by his private contractor.

Rishipal, Kiran and Bishen had none. A week after the worker’s death, inspection of every sewer in the hospital (there are hundreds of them on the campus) began with a bang. Men loaded with safety equipment and two vans – one for jetting, another for suction – were called in to provide services.

“The Governor can say all he wants that men should not descend inside the drain. But without going inside, the sewer cleaning job is only half done. A suction pump cannot be inserted beyond a certain depth, and a worker has to go in with long wooden sticks to unclog the sewer of solid waste, so that the water flows on,” said a sewer man on duty at LNJP Hospital, who did not wish to be identified.

Delhi’s sewers are maintained by multiple agencies – the Delhi Jal Board, New Delhi Municipal Corporation, Municipal Corporation of Delhi, central PWD and Delhi Cantonment Board. Every agency has separate jurisdiction depending on land use and maintains any sewers that fall within that land tract.

While it is mandatory, according to law, to have mechanised interventions for cleaning sewers, an emergency-like situation arose that Sunday, when contractors who provide jetting and suctioning machine trucks and workers with safety equipment were not available.

“We were plunging into dirty waters that were waist-deep. Without gumboots or any other safety equipment. Where do we get safety gear? The PWD office was shut,” Kiran asked.

That Sunday, toilets in the gynaecology and burns wards at the hospital were choking excessively. Kiran had inspected toilets on many previous accounts. He blames the choking on ill-informed patients.

“They throw everything from cotton swabs to plastic bags to glass bottles and sanitary napkins inside the toilet pot. When such items are flushed, they go down to choke sewer lines at multiple places,” he said. And then he cringes. “I had once removed a dead foetus from the sewer.”

Workers at LNJP Hospital after Rishipal’s death. They dread entering the sewer line.

The Delhi government’s 2014 study had also noted that a work permit is mandatory under law for undertaking tasks in the sewer. Almost all respondents shared that they do not get any work permit for the job. Only half of the respondents mentioned that they work under supervision whereas the more trained staff said they are independent in functioning.

While a supervisor’s presence on the site is a must, Rishipal and his team were perceived to be “experienced”, and hence descended the drain independently. Also, they did not have any work permit.

The incident shook the power corridors of the Delhi Secretariat. Emergency meetings were convened. Follow-ups were made. PWD’s junior engineer Ravi Meena and assistant engineer SK Dohre were suspended. Even after six months, Meena and Dohre remain suspended, while being paid their monthly salary for doing nothing. On the other hand, little has been done to safeguard the rights of sewer workers in LNJP Hospital and elsewhere.

“We are daily wage workers,” Kiran said. Engineers at the PWD hire petty contractors by floating tenders, who further sub-contract the dirty work to labourers, those who are willing to descend into the black pits of despair. Contractors hunt down such workers in the bastis of Delhi – Seelampur, Sultanpuri, Mongolpuri, Trilokpuri, Dakshinpuri to name a handful. They are paid Rs 400-600 per job.

“We are called in to do multiple jobs. Fixing a choked sewer, a broken glass, doubling up as a mason or plumber, we do it all to earn a few bucks,” Kiran explained. “There are no holidays. Any holiday that we take, we face a wage cut. There is no Provident Fund or Employee State Insurance scheme. Technically, we do not exist on any official payroll. We have no face. Yet, we engage in life-threatening jobs.”

After Rishipal’s death, the PWD has barred daily-wage workers from entering the sewers. They are asked not to come on Sundays and public holidays, and are not paid wages. “It is like taking forced leave. The ‘thekedaar’ says you will get paid for the days that you work,” said Kiran.

Kiran has two young school-going sons. Piyush is in the fifth-grade and Varun in the seventh. They wearily take off their school bags and sit down to finish their homework. Kiran, who has himself studied only until the eighth grade, looks at them fondly. “My sons have no idea about the nature of my job. But I am on it, just so that I earn enough to make sure they complete their education and pursue good careers,” he added.

While Rishipal was always given a cheque of Rs 8,000 every month by the contractor through the many years he worked at LNJP Hospital, two months before he died inhaling the deadly cocktail of gases while on job, his salary had been increased to Rs 18,000 a month.

So what prompted Rishipal to go 15 feet under that fateful day?

“Woh bahut hero ban raha tha,” (he was thinking of himself as a hero), smirked a PWD junior engineer at the LNJP Hospital campus. “Rishipal descended the sewer drain by his own will. There should have been safety equipment in place,” the engineer agreed, yet maintaining that it was no fault of anyone but Rishipal’s that he got engulfed in deadly gases and died.

The engineer chose not to comment on why there was no checking of gas levels before Rishipal descended. May be he has no answer.

The sole earning member of the family, Rishipal was compelled to work on Sundays. As one crosses the old bridge and enters Shahdara, there is a maze of unauthorised colonies and slums. It is a puzzle to find Rishipal’s house, in a string of unilinear buildings, each on a plot size of 25 sqm housing 100 sqft rooms one above the other. A fleet of cramped stairs and a dark passageway lead to what doubles up as the house of Rishipal’s family of five.

Two plastic chairs and a broken cot are their only possessions. Rishipal married 29 years ago, and started working as a manual scavenger 17 years ago, for lack of jobs. He had studied till the eighth grade. “He left the house at 9 am every day and returned at 5 pm. He was getting a cheque of Rs 18,000 per month for the past two months. We never asked anything more, he never revealed he entered sewers in order to make ends meet,” said Aditya (18), Rishipal’s elder son.

In Class 12 until a few months ago, Aditya aspired to be a lawyer and Rishipal was hard at work inside the sewers to fulfil his son’s dreams.

After Rishipal’s death, his son’s dreams have evaporated in thin air. Aditya has joined state-run GB Pant Hospital as a “baildaar” – someone who co-ordinates between the contractor and workers to get petty jobs done at the hospital. He was offered this post by the PWD on grounds of sympathy after his father’s death.

Workers at LNJP Hospital are disillusioned by Rishipal’s death, but they have moved on. Apart from the temporary suspension of PWD engineers no action has been taken. The problem of sewer deaths just does not cease. Last week, two sewer workers died in Jaipur. Deaths were reported from Ludhiana in Punjab and Hyderabad in Telangana in January and February this year.

“Across the country, septic tanks and sewers are being cleaned by human beings. Everybody knows this. The government or any private agency or establishment do not have a proper mechanised way for cleaning the sewers. They do not have instruments or any kind of system to develop a mechanism. The central government has to come up with a comprehensive action plan. So far they are not recognising the problem,” said Bezwada Wilson, National Convenor of Safai Karmachari Andolan.

Here’s what an interview with Bezwada Wilson, National Convener, Safai Karmachari Andolan, revealed:

In spite of the laws put in place, why do deaths continue unabated?

No framework or law has said the Government of India must bring in place a mechanised way for cleaning sewers. Now the Prime Minister should come up with a deadline and say that by April 30 of this year, we will mechanise the works. Every other day, workers are dying. No Prime Minister, no President, no Union minister is talking about this. This silence has to break. They must acknowledge that the people who are dying are also the citizens of this country.

Is the government serious about ending this practice?

The government’s focus is on construction of toilets, not the life of scavengers. They are not taking the deaths seriously. This is a gruesome crime. We cannot kill our fellow human beings like this. Everybody has the right to life. The Supreme Court judgment is also there. There is an Act in place, what else is required?

Under Swachh Bharat, even the ministry of finance has been involved, all ministries are expected to work. So when it comes to sewer worker’s deaths, how much time does it take to pull up the authorities? It is just a matter of one phone call or issue one notification saying all mechanised ways of cleaning have to be available by this date.

What is the status of various cases filed in courts?

No case is going in any direction. All courts say this must stop immediately. They do not say the chief minister is accountable and summon him/her. In Tamil Nadu, over 300 deaths have been reported. Why don’t they summon the chief secretary? No, they will just issue a notice for improvement. It is a routine practice which is obnoxious and inhuman. The judiciary must take extraordinary steps to stop this. But the judiciary is not doing that.

Kerala has recently demonstrated use of robots to clean sewers. Your thoughts?

These are all prototypes. Recently retired engineers from Bangalore and IIT-Delhi had also tried their hands at different prototypes. But these should reach sewer workers on the ground who are cleaning the sewers.

What is the solution then?

The government should appoint a proper agency, which can carry out advance mechanisation. That is not happening. There is a budget allocation, that is not being used. Rehabilitation of people who left jobs of dry latrines has not happened. The government keeps carrying out survey after survey. We have already done a survey, we are giving out the reports, go verify the numbers and provide rehabilitation. But no, they want to do a re-survey now.

The budgets have not been utilised effectively?

Under the social justice ministry, the outlay for rehabilitation was Rs 570 crore earlier. Later, it was slashed to Rs 20 crore, and then further slashed to Rs 10 crore. It hovers around Rs 20-40 crore for this year. But they will spend this money on the survey, not on the rehab.

This story was published in the Patriot.