No data, no compensation: Injured sewer workers slip through legislative & legal cracks

'I drink alcohol now to fight the pain. It's cheaper than medicine'

- MPOST BUREAU

On a cold February morning in 2020, Sanjay, a sanitation worker, in his forties, from Delhi's Seemapuri, was called in a hurry by a local contractor. A political rally was scheduled nearby, and “the sewer was overflowing”.

He was promised Rs 300. “It was urgent and the money was good, so we went,” Sanjay said.

Three men climbed down that day, but only one made it out alive.

Inside the narrow pit, thick with the stench of toxic gases, Sanjay’s coworkers fell unconscious within minutes. “Then they pushed me to go inside and check,” Sanjay said.

He remembers nothing after that but only waking up, 13 days later, in a hospital bed with tubes running through his nose and throat.

Sanjay’s medical records from the Lok Nayak Hospital mention “acute sewer gas poisoning” and “pneumonitis” - lung inflammation caused by inhaling toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide and methane.