Why in News ?
- The Down To Earth (Nov 2025) investigation titled “Invisible Deaths: How India’s Climate Crisis Abandons Its Sanitation Workers” exposed how rising temperatures, caste hierarchies, and institutional neglect combine to turn sanitation work into a slow, climate-driven genocide.
- Despite 733 recorded heatstroke deaths (Mar–Jun 2024), the deaths of sanitation workers — predominantly Dalits — remain unrecorded, unacknowledged, and unprotected in India’s climate adaptation and labour policies.
- It highlights how climate change amplifies caste-based occupational vulnerability and exposes policy blind spots in NAMASTE scheme, heat action plans, and labour codes.
Relevance :
GS-2 (Governance & Social Justice):
- Policy failure in implementing NAMASTE scheme and manual scavenging rehabilitation.
- Exclusion of sanitation workers from climate adaptation and social protection frameworks.
GS-3 (Environment):
- Intersection of climate change, heatwaves, and occupational vulnerability.
- Need for climate justice and inclusive adaptation planning.
GS-1 (Society):
- Caste-based occupational hierarchy and structural violence under climate stress.
- Ethical and human rights implications of invisible labour deaths.
GS-4 (Ethics):
- Moral responsibility of the state toward dignity of labour and distributive justice.
Basic Legal and Institutional Framework
1. Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013
- Prohibits manual cleaning of sewers and septic tanks without protective equipment.
- Mandates rehabilitation, alternate livelihood, and compensation to affected families.
2. Supreme Court Directives (2014 & 2025)
- 2014: Directed States to end manual scavenging and compensate sewer-death families with ₹10 lakh.
- Jan 2025: Absolute ban on manual scavenging in 6 metro cities, including Delhi.
3. NAMASTE Scheme (National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem, 2023)
- Objective: Eradicate hazardous manual cleaning through mechanisation, training, PPE distribution, and social security.
- Coverage: 84,902 identified workers, but only 45,871 PPE kits distributed (54% coverage).
4. Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020
- Contains no heat-protection provisions for sanitation or outdoor workers (only for dock workers).
5. Heat Action Plans (HAPs)
- Prepared by 23 States, but most ignore caste and occupation-based vulnerability, treating risk as a uniform environmental issue rather than a social injustice.
Key Data (2020–2025)
| Period | Reported Sewer/Septic Tank Deaths | Key Findings |
| 2020–24 | 294 official deaths | ≈ 1 preventable death every 6 days |
| 2024 | 116 deaths | Govt insists “manual scavenging eradicated” |
| Jan–Jun 2025 | 42 deaths | Delhi worst affected (6 deaths) |
| 2019–23 | 377 total deaths | 90% lacked safety gear (Govt social audit) |
→ Reality: Deaths continue under contractual, caste-based, invisible labour systems despite legal bans.
The Climate–Caste Nexus
1. Caste as Structural Heat Exposure:
- Marginalised castes (mainly Dalits) occupy most heat-exposed occupations — sanitation, waste collection, construction.
- 150% higher heat exposure recorded among Dalit workers for UTCI (Universal Thermal Climate Index) thresholds between 26°C–35°C.
2. Amplified Risks in Sewers:
- Sewer interiors amplify temperatures, trap toxic gases (H₂S, methane), and reduce oxygen.
- No modified working hours or cooling breaks during heatwaves.
3. Legal Blind Spots:
- Labour laws and HAPs fail to link climate vulnerability with caste or occupation, perpetuating policy invisibility.
Invisible Deaths and Data Denial
1. Statistical Erasure:
- Govt claims manual scavenging eradicated; thus, worker deaths are not recorded as occupational or climate casualties.
- 40% of sanitation workers lack ID documents, excluding them from welfare, insurance, or climate compensation schemes.
2. Reporting Gap:
- Deaths among contractual workers (under private agencies) often unreported or misclassified.
- State agencies’ refusal to maintain caste-disaggregated climate data leads to policy blindness.
Privatisation and Precarity
1. Contractualisation of Risk:
- Example: Chennai protests (Aug 2025) — 2,000 workers resist privatisation cutting wages from ₹22,590 to ₹15,000.
- Private contractors → reduced accountability, no insurance, no pensions.
2. Mechanisation Gap:
- NAMASTE’s goal of “no human in sewer” unrealised — most cities still depend on manual cleaning due to lack of machines, budget cuts, and local contractor networks.
Climate Justice and Caste: A Broader Lens
1. Unequal Climate Impacts:
- Tamil Nadu floods (2015): 90% of injured, 95% of houses damaged belonged to Dalits (IDSN study).
- Dalit settlements in low-lying flood-prone areas face systemic exclusion from relief and safe water.
2. Regional Parallels:
- Amnesty International (2025): Similar discrimination among Dalit sanitation workers in Bangladesh’s coastal districts — climate disasters intensifying caste and gender vulnerability.
→ India mirrors this structural violence under climate stress.
Government and Institutional Response
1. NAMASTE Implementation Gaps (Parliamentary Committee, Aug 2025):
- Warned PPE distribution delays may “deprive many workers of crucial protection.”
- Urged strict enforcement so no worker handles faecal matter directly.
2. Policy Silences:
- No national database of sanitation deaths post-2022.
- Heat Action Plans rarely mention “sanitation” or “Dalit.”
- No compensation framework linking heat deaths to occupational cause.
Ethical, Governance, and Human Rights Dimensions
1. Structural Violence:
- Climate change magnifies pre-existing caste oppression, not just environmental exposure.
- “Invisible deaths” = outcome of policy denial + social hierarchy.
2. Governance Failure:
- Contradiction between ‘Viksit Bharat’ narrative and denial of basic dignity to sanitation workers.
- Reflects state apathy, fragmented accountability, and moral vacuum.
3. Moral Paradox:
- Nation bans manual scavenging but continues to exploit Dalits through informal, dangerous labour chains.
- Climate crisis turns occupational stigma into existential threat.
What Justice Demands (Policy Imperatives)
1. Formalisation:
- All sanitation work under permanent government employment with social security and medical cover.
2. Criminal Accountability:
- Strict prosecution of employers sending workers without safety gear or mechanised tools.
3. Mechanisation:
- Full mechanisation of sewer cleaning in every ULB (Urban Local Body) within 2 years.
4. Data Justice:
- Caste- and occupation-disaggregated climate data in all adaptation and resilience frameworks.
5. Integration with Climate Planning:
- Link sanitation labour conditions to National Adaptation Communication (NAC) and State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCC).
