New Delhi: The government told Parliament on July 21, that there had been 332 sanitation worker deaths reported due to hazardous sewer and septic tank cleaning between January 2021 and June 2026. The Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale in a written reply in Lok Sabha said that 193 FIRs had been registered in the past five years against agencies and officials for hazardous manual cleaning.

Government data has been strongly rebutted by the Safai Karamchari Andolan (SKA), a civil society organisation which works amongst those working in sanitation and who mostly hail from the most oppressed castes has an index for measuring the deaths of manual workers in India. 

Bezwada Wilson, a Ramon Magsaysay award winner and the convenor of SKA said that there have been an excessive 261 sewer........

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