Manual scavenging persists in modern Mumbai for three reasons: there is demand for the service; there is a supply of poor people who need the work; and there is inadequate enforcement of the law. BMC is not legally bound to help private premises clean their sewers and septic tanks. But to truly eliminate this practice, authorities must ensure everyone — from landlords to societies to commercial buildings — follows the rules. That means mandating proper equipment and protective gear, cracking down on employers, and facilitating access to mechanised tools. Authorities only apply the law when someone dies. That is not enough.

In a bid to end manual scavenging, the central government plans to increase penalties on employers and make machine cleaning of sewers mandatory. But to do that, cities like Mumbai will have to address infrastructural gaps, including the lack of small-scale mechanised services for private residential and commercial buildings. Five of the seven men who died this past year were working in private buildings. 

Officially, BMC has largely transitioned to mechanised cleaning of the city's 1,600-km-long sewer system. But, municipal officials say, they are not legally responsible for sewers inside private premises, and their machines are too large to deploy in smaller buildings anyway. But smaller old buildings can't afford -- or don't want to spend on -- professional cleaning services. Solanki is called in by older housing societies, not new complexes with modern systems. "Housing societies know it is illegal, but smaller machines are either not available for housing societies, or are expensive," says Ramesh Prabhu, chairman of the Maharashtra Societies Welfare Association. 

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