Municipal Conservancy Workers in Bombay

Municipal conservancy workers are a neglected section of our working population. The caste system in India has undergone many changes and its manifestations exist in varying degrees in different regions/occupations. Scavenging and Municipal conservancy work is one such occupation where the workforce mainly consist of a dalit community. There is thus a structural basis to the social composition of the conservancy workforce. Irrespective of their regional background conservancy workers belong to the backward classes in an undeniable fact. Apart from these differences, conservancy workers are subjected to class and caste biases in every day life. (Minimum Lives, TISS & Navjeevan Samiti Mumbai)

In Bombay, the contract system is in existence from the more than past 15 years in the Municipal Corporation without providing the facility of water for drinking and washing at the sweeping, landfill sites, dumping grounds. Workers are denied access to the public transportation due to their filthy conditions, which were due to unavailability of water facility at the working site. BMC has not provided any rest space for contract workers and therefore workers have to eat their food on the garbage trucks while carrying garbage to the dumping ground. There is a very high mortality rate among safai karamcharis in Mumbai due to the poor access to health facilities. In this vicious circle of poverty, a poor quality of life for the worker and the family is marked by a struggle to make ends meet and high indebtedness to moneylenders/contractors, since the group does not meet the eligibility criteria for accessing institutional sources of credit.