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The Union authorities connected Tuesday (February 3, 2026) for the archetypal clip released information connected the ongoing enumeration of waste-pickers crossed the country, showing that a full of 1.52 lakh specified workers had been profiled and validated truthful acold crossed municipality areas of 35 States and Union Territories. At the nationalist level, 84.5% of wide waste-pickers were from Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and Other Backward Class communities and 10.7% from General class communities.
At the State/UT level, determination were immoderate outliers, wherever waste-pickers from the General class constituted a important majority. For instance, successful Delhi and Goa, those from General class communities outnumbered those from SC, ST, and OBC communities enactment together. In West Bengal, General class workers constituted 42.4% of each those profiled and validated.
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment tabled the information successful Parliament connected Tuesday (February 3, 2026). The enumeration workout is portion of the Ministry’s NAMASTE scheme, which is enumerating sewer and septic vessel workers and waste-pickers crossed the country, to person them formally recognised by municipality section bodies and supply them with protective equipment. The strategy aims astatine eradicating deaths owed to hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks.
The information showed that a full of 1.52 lakh waste-pickers had been profiled and validated by municipality section bodies arsenic portion of this workout till January 23 this year. Of these, astir 48.7% are women (74,427), 51.3% men (78,374), and 0.007% transgender radical (12).
Category-wise population
Social class information showed that of the full workers profiled, 60.3% were from SC communities (92,089), 13.7% from OBC communities (20,954), and 10.5% from ST communities. It besides said 16,329 waste-pickers (10.7%) were from communities classified nether the General category.
In Delhi and Goa, however, the bulk of waste-pickers were from the General category. In Delhi, 4,289 of much than 6,500 waste-pickers profiled were from that category, and the lawsuit was akin successful Goa, where, of the full 1,286 workers profied, 729 were from General class communities.
Under the NAMASTE scheme, waste-pickers person been defined arsenic radical “informally” engaged successful “collection and betterment of reusable and recyclable coagulated discarded from streets, bins, worldly betterment facilities, processing and discarded disposal facilities for merchantability to recyclers straight oregon done intermediaries to gain their livelihood”.
‘Other’ category
The data, tabled by Minister of State for Social Justice Ramdas Athawale, besides said that 7,402 workers were from “Other” communities. The information was released successful effect to a question from Erode MP K.E. Prakash from the DMK connected the NAMASTE scheme, which had precocious included enumeration of waste-pickers successful its objectives.
The strategy has truthful acold enumerated astir 89,000 sewer-entry workers and septic vessel workers, 95.8% of them men. Parliament information from December 2024 showed that among the sewer and septic vessel workers profiled till then, 91.95% were from SC, ST, and OBC backgrounds, portion astir 8.05% were from General class communities. However, State-level information of that clip has not yet been made available.
859 dormant since 2014
In effect to a antithetic question successful Lok Sabha connected Tuesday, the Social Justice Ministry said that a full of 859 radical had died owed to hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks crossed the state since 2014, with 43 of these deaths occurring successful 2025.
Under the constituent of sewer and septic vessel workers, the strategy considers “workers straight associated with sewer and septic vessel cleaning, including drivers of desludging vehicles, helpers, instrumentality operators and cleaners”.
