The World’s Worst Job?

All of which makes New Delhi the perfect setting for the World Toilet Summit, which opened this week. The four-day event is exploring ways to bring sewage systems to the estimated 2.6 billion people in the world who don't have proper toilets, including 700 million in India alone.

According to Santram Pradhan, president of the union representing the 8,000 Delhi Jal sewage workers, around 1,000 sewage workers have died in the past seven years. He says 200 have died from asphyxiating on the noxious gasses and drowning in excreta, and about 800 others have died from tuberculosis, hepatitis and other diseases. "Half die, half retire," Pradhan says, ascribing many of the safety lapses to the lack of concern for low-caste Valmiki workers shown by Delhi Jal Board officials. Numerous requests to interview Delhi Jal Board officials in charge of sewer workers went unanswered.

Safety equipment is available, Pradhan adds. The money has been appropriated, and the masks, boots, gloves, pumps and other gear have been procured. But either through neglect, discrimination or disregard, when the calls go out, the sewer workers wield little more than a pick, a hoe and a bucket.

"I won't deny it—no safety equipment is used," says a junior engineer, Mahendra Kumar. "The attitude is strongly caste-biased, and there is tremendous insecurity in this job. Lower-caste people are looked upon as tools."

The supervisor working with Rajender and Rakesh, Rattan Singh, also a member of the Valmiki community, says the equipment is available, but due to carelessness or disregard from the officers they don't have access to it. "There is no willingness to provide safety equipment. Call it what you want."

Singh points to another problem: many of New Delhi's inhabitants live in crowded, unauthorized colonies or neighborhoods. The few trucks available and capable of pumping out a blocked sewage drain cannot fit down the narrow lanes. "The machines are huge, and it is an old, very small sewer line," he says.