The World’s Worst Job?

A 2005 report by the Centre for Education and Communication, a New Delhi think tank, found that half the city's sewage workers were malnourished and suffered from chronic illnesses. Ashish Mittal, author of the report, says little has changed since then. "The main thing is a lack of accountability and responsibility," he says. "This is a hazardous job. If they followed basic safety norms, these acute deaths wouldn't happen. Because these people have no voice they are sent inside [the sewers]."

Because of caste discrimination, cleaning New Delhi's sewers is something of a family affair. And it seems that every sewage worker has a story of a friend or relative who has died on the job. Hard numbers are difficult to come by because so many of New Delhi's sewage workers are day laborers employed on an ad hoc basis by contractors.

A lawsuit was filed this past July in the Delhi High Court by a Dalit rights group, the National Campaign for the Dignity and Rights of Sewage and Allied Workers, against four separate New Delhi municipal agencies, each with its own small army of sewage workers (the Delhi Jal Board has the largest). Hemlata Kansotia, a veteran social activist who heads the campaign, argues that use of the Valmiki community as sewage workers is part of a perpetual system of caste discrimination, even though India's constitution officially abolished caste in 1950. "If you see the engineers and officers, they are all from the upper castes of Indian society. The Valmiki are the poorest of the poor of Indian society."

The suit aims to abolish the system of contractors (thereby making the officials at the municipality directly responsible for the labor conditions of sewage workers) and enforce the use of safety equipment and procedures. Ultimately, if guidelines are in place and are still being ignored, the court could cite municipal officials with contempt charges, and they could face jail time.

In September, Kansotia's group won a victory when a New Delhi High Court judge ordered the eventual phasing out of sewer cleaners. But the court did not state a time frame, and activists are hoping for a firm timeline they can hold the municipality to. The next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 1. Lawyers representing the sewage workers will argue for further reforms; the municipal authorities will likely argue that sufficient measures are in place, or shift the blame to other municipal agencies. "There should be an order like this in every state," says Surekha Rahal, a lawyer with the Delhi-based Human Rights Law Network, which is taking affidavits from the widows of dead sewage workers who have yet to see compensation for their husbands' deaths.

Although India's judiciary has a reputation for impartiality and independence, it has a backlog of about 25 million cases. So even if the judge hands down a favorable judgment, the sewer workers could still be toiling away for some time in what is perhaps the most unpleasant working environment imaginable.

© 2007