Modi aims to shake up sanitation with Clean India drive

The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, today exhorted people to fulfil Mahatma Gandhi`s vision of Clean India. Photo taken from the Indian PM's official website

His hands protected by torn orange gloves, Dalbira Singh has a grim job scraping waste from train toilets from the tracks at New Delhi's Hazrat Nizamuddin station, a few minutes from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office.

Like an estimated 1 million other Indians, Singh does the work because he was born into a low caste. His parents did the same work before him.

"This is a disgusting job but no one will give me another. I am destined to be a toilet-cleaning man," Singh said this week, picking up soiled sanitary towels and diapers before wiping the tracks with a cloth soaked in cleaning chemicals.