Thakur and Kashte descended into the chamber. Subsequently, unable to gauge the depth of the chamber and lacking sufficient oxygen, both men got trapped inside. Kashte died while Thakur sustained injuries and was taken to hospital

Published on: Sep 30, 2026, 07:55:20 IST

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MUMBAI: A day after the death of a sanitation worker, the Vakola police arrested a private contractor, Vilas Jadhav, for hiring two workers to clean a private colony’s sewer line and opening a BMC manhole for this. The workers fell into the manhole and while one died, the other worker sustained injuries.

After the Vakola police received a call about the accident at 11 am on Monday, sewerage inspection officer Abhijit Vethan and other BMC officials rushed to the scene. The police were already present and the fire brigade had pulled out the men. When the police questioned Vilas Jadhav, who was present at the site, he stated that he was a retired BMC employee and undertook small drainage cleaning contracts.

Jadhav explained that Bhavya Niketan Society had engaged him to clear a choked drainage line and he was executing this work with the help of labourers Santosh Kashte, Ajay Thakur and Bavja. Since the internal drainage line was blocked, the group proceeded to a BMC-managed drainage chamber located outside the society premises and opened its lid.

Thakur and Kashte descended into the chamber. Subsequently, unable to gauge the depth of the chamber and lacking sufficient oxygen, both men got trapped inside. Kashte died while Thakur sustained injuries and was taken to hospital.

When the police asked Jadhav if he possessed any authorisation to open the BMC chamber, he admitted that he had no such permission or the necessary safety equipment for drainage work.

When Vethan informed his superiors about the matter, they instructed him to file a complaint against the individual who had opened the chamber cover and protective grate without authorisation. Based on his complaint, the police booked Jadhav under Sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 125 (rash and dangerous act to endanger the life of others) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Thakur told from his hospital bed that he had opened and cleaned several manholes for Jadhav in the past, highlighting that manhole scavenging continues in Mumbai despite the claims made by the Dakshata and Sarvekshan committees (on manhole scavenging) in 2024. The National Commission of Safai Karamcharis said that 332 sanitation workers had died across India in the last decade, of whom 58 were from Maharashtra.

However when former advocate Isha Singh mentioned this figure to the judge in a PIL seeking compensation for three women who had lost their sanitation worker husbands in December 2019, the government claimed there were zero scavengers in the state. Singh, who is now a police officer, then appealed to the judge that the collector of the city should also be held liable and pay compensation. After a two-year wait, the state government’s social justice department ordered compensation for the widows of the three workers.

In order to make sure there is no manual manhole scavenging in Mumbai, the state government has set up the Dakshata and Sarvekshan committees headed by the collector and has at least nine members from the BMC, police and NGOs, with the assistant commissioner of social justice department as secretary.

The committees are scheduled to meet every three months to ensure that there are no manual manhole scavengers, and if there are, to find them and rehabilitate them so that they do not return to the job under the 2013 Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act.

“The meetings are just a formality. There is no brainstorming on the prohibition of sanitation workers,” said a member who did not want to be named.

“The right to life with dignity is a fundamental right which the BMC and the contractors flout while continuing to send manual scavengers into the gutters in hazardous situations without proper helmets, gas cylinders, and other equipment. If the BMC claims that there are no manual scavengers, how are the deaths happening?” questioned the member who also stated that committee meetings often coincided with other meetings and were postponed or never conducted.

“The minutes of these meetings should be sent to members within 10 days, but we are often handed the minutes of the previous meeting in the next meeting with nothing substantial to follow up,” said Jagdish Kharalia general secretary of Shramik Janta Sangh and member of the Thane Daskshta committee.

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