After uproar, delhi pwd deletes post on manual scavengers
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The post on X (formerly Twitter) apparently violated Supreme Court guidelines. On January 29, 2025, the court had ordered a complete stop to the practice of manual scavenging and hazardous
manual cleaning of sewers and septic tanks in all top metropolitan cities — including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. Despite this, the Public Works Department
posted on social media a couple of videos and photographs of manual scavengers on duty on Road Number 41A in Rohini, showing that de-silting work was being done in the capital. The post was
shared on Tuesday morning at around 10 a.m., but as soon as it went viral and attracted heavy criticism on social media, the Public Works Department deleted it within a few hours. However,
by then, many users had already taken screenshots of the post. It was in 2024 when the Delhi High Court had sought responses from the Centre and the Delhi government on a plea challenging
the constitutional validity of various provisions of the law that allow manual scavenging and create an ‘unreasonable classification’ between those cleaning sewers and septic tanks manually
and those doing so using protective devices.