NEW DELHI: In a glaring violation of the law, the Public Works Department publicly posted images and videos showing manual scavengers waist-deep in sewage during a recent de-silting operation — despite the practice being explicitly banned in India. After facing intense backlash and public outrage, the department quietly deleted the posts on Tuesday.
However, at least one video remains on Twitter, exposing the hollow claims of reform. Ironically, just two months ago, the same department had boasted about acquiring high-tech sewer cleaning machines to eliminate manual scavenging — a promise that now rings dangerously hollow.
On April 7, 2025, PWD Minister Parvesh Verma had announced that the government was set to deploy advanced sewer cleaning machines across the city to address chronic waterlogging issues. Verma had also stated that CCTV cameras would be used to verify the complete de-silting of drains.
On the day of the announcement, PWD officials had said that the recycler machine would be able to conduct deep and effective sewer cleaning without requiring manual entry, addressing both efficiency and safety concerns.
The post on X (formerly Twitter) apparently violated Supreme Court guidelines. On January 29, 2025, the court had ordered a complete stop to the practice of manual scavenging and hazardous manual cleaning of sewers and septic tanks in all top metropolitan cities — including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad.
Despite this, the Public Works Department posted on social media a couple of videos and photographs of manual scavengers on duty on Road Number 41A in Rohini, showing that de-silting work was being done in the capital.
The post was shared on Tuesday morning at around 10 a.m., but as soon as it went viral and attracted heavy criticism on social media, the Public Works Department deleted it within a few hours. However, by then, many users had already taken screenshots of the post.
It was in 2024 when the Delhi High Court had sought responses from the Centre and the Delhi government on a plea challenging the constitutional validity of various provisions of the law that allow manual scavenging and create an ‘unreasonable classification’ between those cleaning sewers and septic tanks manually and those doing so using protective devices.
