Waste collectors and burial ground workers haven’t been paid for several months in Bengaluru, making it hard for them to make ends meet. This has also forced these workers, in an unofficial arrangement, to seek money from citizens. 

Eeranna, a waste collector in the East Corporation, said the last time he was paid his salary was in September, 2025 and since then he has been surviving on selling plastic he picks up from the waste collected from households and the money some residents give him on a monthly basis.