For sanitation workers, survival is a daily battle with death -- unseen, undervalued, yet vital to the city's lifeblood
On a frigid February morning in 2020, Sanjay, a sanitation worker in his forties from Delhi's Seemapuri, was summoned in haste by a local contractor. A political rally loomed nearby, and the "sewer was overflowing." Promised Rs 300, Sanjay and two co-workers descended into the narrow pit, unaware that the very air they were breathing carried the lethal sting of toxic gases.
Minutes in, the stench of hydrogen sulfide, methane, and other sewer gases rendered his colleagues unconscious. Urged to check further, Sanjay remembers nothing until waking 13 days later in a hospital bed, tubes snaking through his nose and throat. Diagnosed with acute sewer gas poisoning and pneumonitis, he had survived the ordeal, but the scars -- both physical and mental -- remain indelible.
"My stomach hurts constantly, my breathing is labored, my heart races," he said, clutching a small plastic bag of medicines he can no longer afford. "I drink alcohol now to numb the pain. It's cheaper than medicine."
Sanjay's mother, now 70, ekes out a living stitching elastic onto garment tags for Rs 30 a day. Their single-room home crumbles around them; walls are damp, ceilings sag, yet repairs are unaffordable. Despite narrowly escaping death, no compensation, no inquiry, no rehabilitation followed.