No death from manual scavenging, the ministry told Parliament; 332 sanitation workers died cleaning sewers and septic tanks

Asked in the Lok Sabha for the deaths due to manual scavenging and hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks over the last five years, state by state, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment gave two answers in one reply. The first: “No death has been reported due to manual scavenging.” The second, in Annexure I: 332 sanitation workers lost their lives in the hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks from 1 January 2021 to 30 June 2026, as reported by the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis.

Two numbers, both true

The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 treats the two as different things. Manual scavenging is the handling of human excreta from insanitary latrines, open drains or pits, railway tracks and similar places. Hazardous cleaning is the manual cleaning of a sewer or septic tank without the employer providing protective gear and ensuring safety precautions. A second answer the same day, to Unstarred Question 2730, set out both definitions when asked whether the deaths could be reconciled with replies that no death had been due to manual scavenging.

So zero and 332 are not in conflict. A reader who sees only the first line of the answer, though, would not know that 332 people died doing work the same law prohibits without safety gear. The answer says the deaths occurred “due to non-observance of safety precautions”; it gives no breakdown by cause.

Where the deaths were

The deaths were recorded in 18 states and union territories. Five account for 209, or 63.0%: Maharashtra (58), Haryana (47), Tamil Nadu (38), Uttar Pradesh (37) and Delhi (29).

Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Delhi, Goa, Haryana and Telangana recorded 89 of the deaths but have no one in the list of manual scavengers identified in the 2013 and 2018 surveys. That too follows from the definitions: those surveys count manual scavengers, not sewer and septic tank workers.

Compensation: 48 not confirmed

The year-wise table in Unstarred Question 2730 runs from 2019. Its rows for 2021 to June 2026 add up to 332, the same total as the state table in Unstarred Question 2562: the two tables agree.

Of those 332 deaths, full compensation of Rs 30 lakh, the amount with effect from the Supreme Court’s judgment of 20 October 2023, was paid for 74. Full compensation of Rs 10 lakh was paid for 194, partial compensation for 16, and for 48 compensation is “not confirmed”. The share not confirmed is highest in the latest years: 20 of the 47 deaths in 2025 and 10 of the 16 in the first half of 2026. The answer does not say whether these are pending, refused or unrecorded.

One column needs explaining. Its heading is “Full compensation (Rs. 10 lakh) paid before the judgement of Supreme Court dated 20.10.2023”, yet it counts 8 of the 54 deaths in 2024 and 3 in 2025: 11 deaths that happened after that date. The answer does not say why.

What the answers do not give

The question asked what had been done to fix the accountability of officials and contractors. The answer sets out the penalty, imprisonment of up to five years or a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh or both, but gives no count of prosecutions. An earlier answer, to Unstarred Question 1520 on 28 July 2026, was asked for FIRs and convictions. It lists 110 FIRs lodged for 166 deaths over the “last three years”, without saying which three, and gives no count of convictions. Its 166 equals the 2023, 2024 and 2025 rows of the year-wise table together.

In that table no FIR is shown for the 12 deaths in Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Telangana.

On manual scavenging itself, the ministry says a fresh survey in all districts in 2024-25 found no manual scavenger, and every district has declared itself free of it. Asked in Unstarred Question 2730 whether any audit of these “nil” certificates had been done, the answer was: “No, Sir.”

Got it right

Deaths have fallen every year since 2022, from 88 to 47 in 2025, and 16 were recorded in the first half of 2026. In 2024 and 2025 full payment at the Rs 30 lakh rate was the commonest outcome. In Delhi, Goa, Haryana, Rajasthan and West Bengal, an FIR was lodged for every death in the three years of Unstarred Question 1520.

The answers publish the deaths state by state and year by year, with compensation status, and every table adds up exactly to its printed total. Under the NAMASTE scheme, launched in July 2023, 89,915 sewer and septic tank workers have been validated. All 58,098 manual scavengers identified in 2013 and 2018 were paid one-time cash assistance of Rs 40,000 each. 32,473 of them, 55.9%, were in Uttar Pradesh. From 2021-22 to 2025-26, 11,869 manual scavengers and dependents were given skill training and 1,574 a capital subsidy.

Every state and union territory

Every year

How we did this

• Sources: the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment’s answers to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2562 and Unstarred Question 2730, both answered on 4 August 2026, and Unstarred Question 1520, answered on 28 July 2026. The death figures are the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis’.
• The answers’ PDFs are scans. Figures were taken from the Lok Sabha’s Word files and checked by eye against the scans.
• Adds up: every column of every table sums exactly to its printed total, every year’s row adds up across, and the 2021 to 2026 rows of the year-wise table sum to the state table’s total. A dash in the answers is read as zero.
• The definitions of manual scavenging and hazardous cleaning are paraphrased from the 2013 Act as quoted in Unstarred Question 2730.
• Download the data: by state and by year. Our method and labels are on the Data Audit method page.

Questions

Corrections

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