WASH INSTITUTE 2024 | Viega Foundation

UMC: SANITATION WORKERS - FROM INVISIBLE TO PROTECTED.

INDIA | STATUS: CURRENT

Across India, millions of sanitation workers carry out essential yet dangerous tasks that keep cities clean and functioning. Many come from marginalized communities and work in informal conditions – often without protective equipment, fair wages, or access to healthcare and social security. Fatal accidents in sewers and septic tanks remain common.
While national initiatives such as the NAMASTE scheme and state-level programs like Garima in Odisha and SWDS in Tamil Nadu seek to improve safety, dignity, and recognition for these workers, their reach remains limited. Expanding and strengthening such initiatives nationwide is crucial to ensure that all sanitation workers become visible, valued, and protected.

Left: Properly equipped sanitation workers carry out the safe cleaning of a sewer.

UMC: SANITATION WORKERS - FROM INVISIBLE TO PROTECTED.

The Urban Management Centre (UMC) believes that improving city systems begins with empowering the people who keep them running. Its goal is to make cities work for everyone by making cities more inclusive, safe, and sustainable for everyone.

The organisation acts as a bridge between policy and on-the-ground action, helping governments plan and implement practical solutions that reach the most vulnerable communities. With more than twenty-five years of experience, UMC provides policy advice, training, and community engagement support. It helps turning pilot initiatives into government-owned, long-term models.

Left: Properly equipped sanitation workers carry out the safe cleaning of a sewer.

UMC: SANITATION WORKERS - FROM INVISIBLE TO PROTECTED.

Nearly two million sanitation workers across Urban India remain invisible and unprotected. Despite driving the country’s sanitation success, they face unsafe working conditions, caste-based exclusion, and frequent fatalities in sewers and septic tanks.

This is especially true for informal sanitation workers, who still largely remain outside existing welfare systems. Fragmented institutional responsibilities, limited data, and social exclusion hinder the effective implementation of safety protocols, decent work norms and welfare schemes.

Left: Properly equipped sanitation workers carry out the safe cleaning of a sewer.

UMC: SANITATION WORKERS - FROM INVISIBLE TO PROTECTED.

The LIVES – Livelihoods Improvement and Vulnerability Elimination in Sanitation – project aims to make sanitation work safe, dignified, and recognised by bringing informal sanitation workers into the system.

Over three years, UMC will provide technical support to strengthen national and state programmes such as NAMASTE, GARIMA, and SWDS by identifying unregistered workers, creating robust enumeration systems, establishing Emergency Response Sanitation Units, and improving safety, health, and welfare mechanisms that ensure lasting protection and social security for all sanitation workers.

Left: Properly equipped sanitation workers carry out the safe cleaning of a sewer.

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UMC: SANITATION WORKERS - FROM INVISIBLE TO PROTECTED.

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