(In this series, we trace the unseen lives of the State’s sanitation workers, capturing the human cost, systemic failures, and hidden labour that keeps the sanitation network functioning.)
“When the suction lorry finishes but the choke has still not eased, they ask us to get in. If the waste has hardened at the bottom, the hose cannot pump it out. That’s when I climb down to loosen it so that it can be pumped out,” said Maruthi B., a resident of Anepalya, who has been cleaning septic tanks and sewage treatment plants across Bengaluru for years.
