EPW

Overview Delhi’s sanitation infrastructure depends, to a degree rarely acknowledged, on a workforce that operates between 11 pm and 6 am. Night-shift sanitation workers — sewer cleaners, garbage collectors, street sweepers deployed in the early morning hours — work in conditions that are dangerous, socially invisible, and poorly documented. Workers in the Shadows is a longitudinal study of 280 night-shift sanitation workers employed by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and by private contractors operating on MCD’s behalf. The study ran for three years, with interviews and income-expenditure tracking conducted annually. The findings were published in Economic and Political Weekly in July 2021. ...