What Is Manual Scavenging, and Why Does It Still Exist in 2026?

A man takes off his shirt, ties a rope around his waist and climbs down into a manhole. He has no mask and no gas detector. Usually he comes back up.

Between January 2021 and June 2026, 332 sanitation workers in India died cleaning sewers and septic tanks. That is the government's own count, given in the Lok Sabha in July 2026. Activists say the true figure is higher.

India first outlawed manual scavenging in 1993, and banned it again, more strictly, in 2013. This guide explains what manual scavenging is, why laws alone haven't ended it, and how a manual scavenging robot changes who goes down the manhole.

What is manual scavenging?

Manual scavenging is the cleaning, carrying or handling of human excreta by hand, from dry latrines, open drains, sewers, septic tanks or railway tracks. India's 2013 Act also separately bans "hazardous cleaning": sending a person into a sewer or septic tank without protective gear and safety devices.

In practice it means three kinds of work:

• Dry latrine and open drain cleaning: removing waste by hand with a broom, a tin plate or a basket.
• Sewer and manhole entry: climbing into a live sewer to clear a blockage by hand. This is the deadliest form today.
• Septic tank emptying: wading into sludge to scoop it out, often in homes and housing societies with no safe septic tank sludge removal service.

This isn't only India's problem. In 2019 the World Bank, ILO, WaterAid and WHO jointly studied sanitation workers in nine countries, from Bangladesh and Kenya to Bolivia and Haiti. They found that efforts to protect these workers were "ad hoc and fragmented." Wherever cities have grown faster than their sewers, someone ends up doing this work by hand.

Why do sewers kill?

A sewer is a confined space filled with gas. Rotting waste gives off hydrogen sulphide, methane and carbon monoxide, and pushes oxygen out. A worker can black out within minutes and drown in sludge before anyone notices.

The deaths often come in twos and threes. One worker collapses, and the next goes down to pull him out. That's why hazardous sewer cleaning is a cluster tragedy, not a lone accident.

Survivors pay too: skin infections, respiratory disease, injuries and a lifetime of stigma attached to the work.

The law says it ended. The numbers say otherwise.

• 1993: The first national ban on employing manual scavengers and building dry latrines.
• 2013: The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act took effect on 6 December 2013. Violations carry up to two years in prison, a fine of up to ₹1 lakh, or both.
• 2023: In a Supreme Court judgement on manhole deaths and manual scavenging (Dr. Balram Singh v. Union of India, 20 October 2023), the Court ordered manual sewer cleaning phased out completely. It raised compensation to ₹30 lakh for a sewer death and ₹20 lakh for permanent disability.

Official deaths have fallen, from 131 in 2019 to 48 in 2025. But the Safai Karmachari Andolan, which tracks deaths on the ground, counted 121 in 2025. In five years, states filed only 193 FIRs.

Why does manual scavenging still exist in 2026?

There are five reasons, and only one of them is technology.

1. The definitions leave a gap. The law counts "manual scavengers" and "hazardous cleaning" separately. A fresh national survey found no manual scavengers, yet sewer deaths continued in the same period. On paper the practice is gone. In the manholes it isn't.
2. The work is outsourced. Most entries happen through contractors and daily-wage arrangements, far from the agency that ordered the job. When a worker dies, accountability gets lost along the chain.
3. The infrastructure fights back. Old, narrow manholes and clogged lines in dense lanes are hard to reach with a truck-mounted sewer jetting machine or a suction cum jetting machine. When the machine can't reach, a person is sent down.
4. Caste and stigma decide who does it. The work still falls largely on Dalit communities. That keeps it invisible to the people who could end it.
5. A human looks cheaper than a machine. It isn't. Each death now carries ₹30 lakh in compensation, and the moral cost has no price at all.

What ends it: machines, not just mandates

Policy has shifted from banning the practice to mechanising the work. The NAMASTE Scheme (National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem), run by the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment with MoHUA, has validated 89,915 sewer and septic tank workers. It has issued 87,037 PPE kits and given 753 safety devices to Emergency Response Sanitation Units (ERSU). Swachh Bharat Mission, AMRUT and the Smart Cities Mission fund robotic sanitation equipment for cities.

PPE matters, but a worker in protective gear is still a worker inside the hole. The goal has to be zero human entry. That means machine scavenging: a sanitation robot goes down, and the person stays above ground in control.

How a manual scavenging robot works

Genrobotics built Bandicoot, India's first robotic manhole cleaning system, after three men died in a Kozhikode sewer in 2016. The Bandicoot robotic scavenger is lowered into the manhole and operated remotely from the surface. It works as both a manhole cleaning robot and a sewer cleaning robot:

• A 6-degree-of-freedom robotic arm that grabs, scoops and shovels waste
• Robotic legs that steady the unit inside the shaft
• Reach of up to 12 metres below ground
• Four HD cameras for live sewer inspection
• Gas sensors that read the air before anyone has to
• An IP68 waterproof, industrial-grade build for narrow, flooded shafts

The Bandicoot Mobility+ mounts the system on a vehicle so crews can move between sites faster. For horizontal spaces such as stormwater drains and STP wells, Genrobotics builds Wilboar. G-Mammoth combines a grabber, jetting, suction and inspection in one municipal manhole cleaning machine for routine sewer maintenance.

The Bandicoot manhole cleaning robot now works in 19 states and 3 Union Territories, across 120+ cities. It's recognised by the NHRC and cited in the Supreme Court case. It was named a "Most Promising Innovative Solution" under AMRUT, and was a top-10 startup in the Swachhata Startup Challenge 2022. With BPCL, five Bandicoots went into service in Indore. With NSKFDC, Genrobotics runs #MissionRobohole.

The most important feature isn't technical. The worker who used to go down the manhole now operates the robot. More than 1000 sanitation workers have been retrained as robot operators. That is what Bandicoot manual scavenging reform looks like: the robot doesn't take the job away. It takes the danger out of it.

What cities and utilities can do now

1. Map every entry point. Audit which manholes and septic tanks still need a person to go in for manhole cleaning.
2. Write zero entry into contracts. The Supreme Court asked for model contracts with penalties and blacklisting. Specify robots for manhole cleaning in every tender.
3. Use the funding that exists. That means NAMASTE and ERSU support, AMRUT and Smart Cities budgets, and CSR partnerships with PSUs such as Coal India, Indian Oil and BPCL.
4. Retrain, don't replace. Turn sanitation workers into certified robot operators.
5. Publish the numbers. Track every entry, every deployment and every incident, in public. This is where robots in smart cities earn their place: as data, not just hardware.

The question was never "can a machine do this?"

It was whether we'd decide that a human shouldn't have to. In 2026 the machine exists, the law demands it and the funding is there. What's left is the decision, and with it the future of urban sewer maintenance.

Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ)

1. Is manual scavenging illegal in India? Yes. India banned it in 1993 and again under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, which took effect on 6 December 2013. The Act also bans hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks without protective gear. Violations carry up to two years in prison, a fine of up to ₹1 lakh, or both.
2. How many sanitation workers die cleaning sewers in India? The government told the Lok Sabha that 332 workers died cleaning sewers and septic tanks between January 2021 and June 2026. Official annual deaths fell from 131 in 2019 to 48 in 2025. Worker groups such as the Safai Karmachari Andolan record higher numbers.
3. What compensation does the Supreme Court require for a sewer death? In Dr. Balram Singh v. Union of India (20 October 2023), the Supreme Court set compensation at ₹30 lakh for a sewer death, ₹20 lakh for permanent disability and at least ₹10 lakh for other disabilities. It also ordered manual sewer cleaning phased out completely.
4. What is the difference between manual scavenging and machine scavenging? In manual scavenging, a person enters the sewer or septic tank and removes waste by hand. In machine scavenging, a robot or machine does the work while the operator stays above ground. Machine scavenging aims for zero human entry into confined spaces.
5. What is the NAMASTE Scheme? NAMASTE (National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem) is a central scheme launched in 2023. It is run by the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment with MoHUA. It aims for zero deaths in sanitation work by validating sewer and septic tank workers, supplying PPE and safety devices, and pushing mechanised cleaning.
6. Does a manual scavenging robot replace sanitation workers? No. It replaces the dangerous part of the job. With robots like Bandicoot, sanitation workers are retrained as robot operators and control the machine from the surface. Genrobotics has retrained more than 1,000 workers this way.