Sanitation workers collect garbage and clean sewers, often without masks, gloves or boots, or risk losing income.
Mumbai, India - On Sunday, as India went into a complete lockdown called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to halt the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Sayaba Kunchikorwe spent his day loading garbage on a municipal truck in Dharavi, one of Mumbai's biggest slums.

Wiping his brow, the 34-year-old shovelled a mound of stinking wet waste onto a plastic mat with his two-pronged rake before tossing it into the garbage truck. The waste consisted of rotting food items, clothes, broken glass, plastic bags, medical waste, and a few face masks.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 infection in the country, he and his colleagues have seen an uptick in the number of discarded face masks in the garbage.

In spite of handling hazardous waste in the middle of a global contagion, Kunchikorwe was working without a mask, gloves, boots, or any other protective gear.

"After we threatened to strike, the contractor gave some of us a disposable mask and low-grade hand gloves," he told Al Jazeera, holding up a mask and a torn glove. "Both articles lasted a day, so we stopped using them. We're anyway used to working without them," he added.
A contract employee with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), Kunchikorwe's job is among the essential services excluded from the lockdown.

Minimum wage
T Sundararaman, global coordinator for People's Health Movements, says sanitation workers like Kunchikorwe are in the vanguard of preventive healthcare, especially in dense urban environs.

"If they stop working even for a couple of days, it'll lead to a public health catastrophe. The number of vermin vectors will increase exponentially, leading to plagues and epidemics," he explained.

Despite that, he said, India's socioeconomic milieu, riven by caste, geography, and patchy implementation of policies, ensures that sanitation workers remain marginalised at all levels.

"Sanitation workers need masks, gloves, boots and gowns at all times. In the current scenario, they are at high risk due to the disposal of infectious articles like masks, used tissues, or clothing," he said.

Even washing their hands, prescribed as a key deterrent to the spread of COVID-19, is not an option for Kunchikorwe and his colleagues.

"There's no soap. We have to buy shampoo sachets and walk a distance to the municipality office to wash up," he added.

Kunchikorwe is among 6,500 contract employees who work in Mumbai's 227 municipal wards to keep the city garbage-free. Many of them get paid Rs 200-350 ($2.6-4.6) a day, well below the minimum wage of Rs 625 ($8.3) stipulated by Maharashtra state.

They supplement the work of the municipality's permanent staff of 28,000 workers in the solid waste management department. The permanent staff receive three to four times the pay, personal protective equipment, and additional benefits like medical insurance, retirement funds, and leave allowance.

The contract workers are victimised by a contract system under which they are hired by different firms every six months to circumvent the labour laws that would extend safety and welfare measures to them.