Inside India's sewer death trap: Why sanitation workers continue to die?

What happened in Greater Noida?

On 26 July, sanitation contractor Shashikant Sharma (40) entered a sewage treatment plant (STP) tank at Eldeco Society in Greater Noida's Sector 150 during maintenance work. He reportedly lost consciousness after inhaling toxic gases. Seeing him collapse, 22-year-old security guard Akash Singh entered the tank in an attempt to rescue him. Both died of asphyxiation before emergency services could recover them. Police detained several people associated with the maintenance work and initiated an investigation into alleged safety violations.

The incident bears a disturbing resemblance to multiple sewer fatalities reported across India every year, where one worker collapses inside a confined space and successive rescuers also succumb due to the absence of protective equipment, oxygen support, or confined-space rescue protocols.

If hazardous sewer cleaning is prohibited, why do workers still enter septic tanks?

The answer lies in the gap between legislation and implementation.

The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 prohibits hazardous manual cleaning of sewers and septic tanks without adequate safety equipment and procedures. Over the years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly directed governments to eliminate hazardous sewer entry, ensure mechanised cleaning, and compensate victims' families.

Yet fatalities continue.

Government data tabled in Parliament has acknowledged 622 sanitation worker deaths in sewer and septic tank incidents between 2017 and March 2026, indicating that the legal prohibition has not translated into operational safety.

What do the numbers reveal?

Parliamentary data paints a troubling picture beyond the fatalities themselves.

Of the 622 recorded deaths:

539 families received full compensation.

25 received only partial compensation.

52 families received no compensation.

Six cases were closed without resolution.

The disparities are particularly striking in Uttar Pradesh, which recorded the highest number of deaths (86). Within Gautam Budh Nagar, where the latest Noida tragedy occurred, 16 sewer deaths had already been recorded over previous years. Only eight families received full compensation, six received none, while two cases were closed.

The figures suggest that institutional accountability often weakens after public attention fades.

Why hasn't mechanisation ended hazardous sewer work?

Successive governments have promoted mechanisation as the long-term solution.

The Centre launched the National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE) in 2023 to replace manual entry with technology, rehabilitate sanitation workers, and improve occupational safety.

By December 2025, over 89,000 sewer and septic tank workers had been identified under the programme, while more than 73,000 were enrolled under health insurance schemes.

However, Parliament was also informed that the government does not maintain data measuring whether mechanisation has increased workers' incomes, improved productivity, or reduced risks. It also does not centrally maintain data on action taken against contractors or civic bodies violating mechanisation norms because sanitation remains a State subject.

The contradiction is stark: mechanisation is a declared policy objective, but its outcomes remain largely unmeasured.

Why do these tragedies keep repeating?

The recent Surat incident demonstrated the same fatal pattern.

Workers entered a septic tank one after another after the first person collapsed. Four died after inhaling toxic fumes.

Greater Noida followed the same sequence.

Occupational safety experts have long warned that confined-space deaths frequently occur because untrained rescuers instinctively enter without breathing apparatus or gas detection equipment. In many cases, contractors lack emergency rescue plans altogether.

These are not isolated accidents but recurring failures of workplace safety.

Beyond deaths: what do sanitation workers continue to face?

Fatalities represent only one part of the crisis. According to government data, the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis received 842 complaints in 2025 relating to unpaid wages, denial of safety equipment, and caste-based discrimination.

Ground reports from sanitation workers continue to challenge claims that hazardous sanitation labour has become socially detached from caste. Many workers describe insecure contractual employment, inadequate protective gear, and persistent social stigma alongside unsafe working conditions.

Meanwhile, investigative reports show families of workers killed in sewer accidents waiting years for compensation, rehabilitation, or legal closure, underscoring that justice often remains incomplete long after the deaths themselves.

The bigger question

The Greater Noida deaths will now be investigated like countless sewer fatalities before them. Yet the evidence accumulated through parliamentary data, recurring accidents, and workers' testimonies points towards a deeper institutional failure.

India has prohibited hazardous manual sewer cleaning. It has introduced mechanisation programmes, issued judicial directions, and acknowledged hundreds of sanitation worker deaths. Yet sewer entry continues, accountability remains fragmented across contractors and civic agencies, and compensation is unevenly delivered.

The Noida tragedy, therefore, is not merely another industrial accident. It is the latest reminder that while policy has evolved, the conditions under which India's sanitation workers labour—and too often die—have changed far more slowly. Until mechanisation, enforcement, worker protection, and institutional accountability converge on the ground, each new sewer death risks becoming another entry in a growing list of preventable tragedies rather than the last.