According to the 2001 census, Mumbai has a population of 11.98 million people, who produce 2,000 million litres of sewage every day. It is estimated that more than 600 sewage workers die every year. That’s 10 times the number of soldiers who have died fighting in the line of fire and arguably, what sewage workers go through on a daily basis is more horrifying. But forget getting the honour of a soldier, they’re not even given the respect due to human beings.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has allocated 30,000 sewage workers to go through the 2,000 litres of shit that the city produces. Neither they are given any proper training nor do they get any equipment to go through all that dirt and slime. There is no medical attention provided to these men as they stand for hours amidst human waste, broken glass and used syringes. Officially, manual scavenging is banned, but the reality is that it continues unhindered.
Directed by Avalok Langer, reporter Samdhish Bhatia in the new documentary of Chase, a collaboration between Newslaundry and ScoopWhoop, goes into Mumbai’s drains to find out why in the financial capital of the world’s fastest growing economy men are still made to dig deep through shit.
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