In a dimly lit hut within the western Indian state of Gujarat, Anjana cradles her child boy, her eyes welling up as she says he’s named after his father.

Anjana’s husband Umesh Bamaniya died in April, 10 days earlier than his son was born, whereas cleansing a choked sewer – a job that may’ve earned him 2,000 rupees (£19; $24). His physique, enveloped in sewage, was retrieved from a manhole in Gujarat’s Tharad city. He was simply 23 years previous.

The lack of her husband, the household’s breadwinner, has left Anjana devastated. “How will I raise my children and educate them?” she asks.

Hundreds of miles away, within the southern state of Tamil Nadu, Annamma is in an identical state.

Her husband Moses, 40, died of asphyxiation inside a sewer at a manufacturing unit in Chennai metropolis in September.

Until his demise, Annamma did not even know her husband cleaned sewers. “He told us he worked at a canteen and sometimes doubled up as a daily wage worker,” she stated.

Annamma, who has two little ladies, continues to be in shock. “Forget about money and survival, how will I tell my children that their father died while cleaning a septic tank?”

Umesh and Moses are amongst 1000’s of sanitation employees from low-caste communities who manually clear sewers, septic tanks, bogs and drains. They are extensively thought of guide scavengers, although consultants say the authorized definition of the time period, which solely consists of individuals who clear or deal with human waste in areas akin to “insanitary latrines” or railway tracks, is too narrow.

Manual scavenging is banned in India however the observe continues to be commonplace, with individuals pressured into it due to inflexible caste guidelines and the dearth of different livelihood choices. They are employed by native companies and even non-public contractors to scrub sewers and drains which can be blocked due to mud and plastic.

Successive federal governments, together with the present one, have missed a number of deadlines to declare India freed from guide scavenging, most lately in August this 12 months.

There is little settlement on how many individuals are engaged in guide scavenging – in 2021, a federal minister told parliament that the federal government had recognized 58,098 guide scavengers within the nation by way of surveys, but additionally added that there was “no report of practice of manual scavenging currently in the country”. But in accordance with the Safai Karmachari Andolan, which works to eradicate guide scavenging, there are greater than 770,000 such employees.

Deaths like these of Umesh and Moses – normally by way of asphyxiation from inhaling poisonous gases within the sewer – are sometimes reported from completely different Indian cities. In July, the federal government stated that 339 individuals had died previously 5 years whereas cleansing sewers and septic tanks.

Another report by the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) – a government-appointed organisation that oversees the situations of sanitation employees – says that 928 sewer employees died between 1993 and 2020, with the states of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat reporting the very best casualties. Even this could possibly be an undercount – a lot of the affected employees are employed on contract, which makes it simpler for authorities or the individuals who employed them to not declare duty.

“Resultantly, these deaths are never considered by the state administration while compiling the data of sewer deaths and hence they remain unreported and non-compensated,” the NCSK report says.

Bezwada Wilson, nationwide convenor of the Safai Karmachari Andolan, alleges that the federal government “lacks the willingness” to depend the precise variety of guide scavengers.

“The government has appointed police officers to go to colonies and count the numbers of workers. But a lot of people refrain from identifying themselves as manual scavengers because of stigma, leading to undercounting,” he says.

Lal Singh Arya, nationwide president of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Scheduled Caste Front, denied this, saying the federal government has been making honest efforts to eradicate the observe. (Scheduled Castes are formally designated teams of traditionally deprived communities who type nearly all of guide scavengers)

“The government has allocated a separate budget for states to acquire new technology to clean sewers and has made provisions for alternate employment for the workers,” he says.

“But if the practice still persists, then strong action must be taken,” Mr Arya provides.

The BBC has emailed inquiries to the federal ministry of social justice and empowerment in regards to the allegations raised by activists however has not obtained a response but.

Governments have put the emphasis on mechanical de-sludging and protecting tools – and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean Indian Campaign) introduced the problem again to mainstream consideration a couple of decade in the past – however activists say much more must be achieved.

For occasion, many contractors and companies do not present security gear to employees or have the tools for mechanised sewer cleansing. The sewers are additionally typically designed in such a method that machines can’t be used to scrub them.

Activists additionally should struggle to get compensation for members of the family of useless employees.

“I have come across many cases where the family members of a worker who died inside a manhole did not receive the financial compensation that was promised to them,” says Purushottam Vaghela, an activist who runs a non-profit organisation known as Manav Garima (Human Dignity).

Ratnaben is certainly one of them – her husband Shambhubhai died in 2008 after inhaling poisonous gases inside a sewer at a non-public manufacturing unit in Ahmedabad metropolis in Gujarat.

Fifteen years later, she says she hasn’t obtained the promised assist from the district administration.

“When my husband died, big promises were made to me, like money, a government job, a house and a good school for my children. But I have grown old waiting for these things,” says Ratnaben, who works as a rag-picker.

The district collector of Ahmedabad didn’t reply to the BBC’s questions on Ratnaben’s allegations.

Mr Wilson says that even when employees need to depart the job, stigma and caste discrimination forestall them from doing so.

“This makes their social rehabilitation even more difficult even if they were to find alternative means of livelihood,” he says.

With inputs from Prabhakar Tamilarasu in Chennai and Deepak Sharma in Delhi

BBC News India is now on YouTube. Click here to subscribe and watch our documentaries, explainers and options.