73% waste pickers lost income during COVID-19 pandemic: Report

More than 73 per cent of Delhi’s waste pickers suffered severe income loss during the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing many into debt and extreme financial distress, said a report released on Tuesday.

The report, ‘A Governance Landfill: The Tragic Story of Capital’s Waste-Picking Community During the Pandemic’, was published by the People’s Commission and Public Inquiry Committee (PC-PIC).

The report also found that 56.5 per cent of waste pickers faced harassment from municipal authorities, while 52 per cent had to borrow money for basic healthcare, an official statement of PC-PIC said.

According to the statement, the findings based on field research, public hearings and testimonies, paints a stark picture of how the pandemic’s economic fallout, coupled with government neglect and increasing privatisation of waste management, pushed waste pickers further into precarity.

At the report’s release event, waste pickers shared firsthand accounts of their struggles.

Kohinoor Bibi, a waste picker from Seemapuri, East Delhi, described the systemic extortion they faced during the lockdown.

“We had to pay bribes just to collect waste and sometimes we were forced to pay Rs 10,000 to dump it. The government isn’t trying to erase poverty — they’re trying to erase us,” she said.

Ayodhya Prasad, a waste picker from Ghaziabad, highlighted the growing privatization of waste management.

“The garbage trucks you see aren’t run by the municipality anymore — they are owned by private companies. The government used the lockdown to push us out of the waste economy.”

The report also sheds light on the educational setbacks faced by waste-picking families.

Association for Social Justice and Research (ASoJ) general secretary Kamala Upadhyaya noted how the crisis deepened social inequalities.

“Waste pickers are now denied access to landfills, making their work more difficult and costly, with entry fees of Rs 50-100. Meanwhile, most children in the community dropped out of school because their families couldn’t afford smartphones during online classes,” Upadhyaya said.

Independent journalist Pamela Philipose pointed out that the pandemic’s impact went far beyond lost livelihoods.

“This report breaks the silence in an era of misinformation, where journalists were arrested, jobs lost, and the government denied the crisis. Beyond lost earnings, it documents lasting consequences like education loss and rising child marriages — not caused by the pandemic itself, but by policy failures,” she said.

Environmental lawyer Ritwick Dutta emphasized how corporate interests have overtaken waste management policies.

“Waste management has become a corporate-driven system, reducing waste pickers’ earnings. Meanwhile, policies like Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) were changed every six months to serve corporate interests. Today, India is importing 93,000 tonnes of waste under EPR, further marginalising local waste workers.”

Researcher Avinash Kumar urged a shift in governance priorities.

“Society is shaped by the stories we tell — one version claims ‘all is well’, while another reveals the lived realities of the marginalized. Urban India systematically denies citizenship to its most vulnerable, eroding social protections. But examples from Pune and Ambikapur show that equitable policies can create real change.”

As India reflects on the aftermath of the pandemic, the marginalised continue to suffer from the government’s indifference and poor crisis management, the statement said.

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The report exposes the stark contrast between the government’s “human-centric” approach and the harsh reality faced by the waste-picking community, it added.