Eleven Indian Sanitation Hits Jackpot, Win $1.2 Million

In June, 11 women sanitation workers from the southern Indian state of Kerala pooled money to buy a lottery ticket.

Last week, they were overjoyed to find out they had hit the jackpot of 100m rupees ($1.2m)

The women are part of a group that collects non-biodegradable waste from households in parappanangadi town in Kerala’s Malappuram district.

They usually get around 250 rupees a day – from monthly payments made by the households – and occasionally a share of the money made by the local corporation from selling the segregated waste they collect.

That’s why they would occasionally join forces to buy a lottery ticket.

Last month, the group decided to buy a 250-rupee ticket for a monsoon bumper prize lottery (bumper prize lotteries are issued for special occasions such as festivals).

Two women put in 12.5 rupees each for their share of the ticket while the other nine women paid 25 rupees each.

The women only found out they had won a day after the draw, when one of them asked her husband to check the results.

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“I am still in shock,” said Radha, 49, among the winners. “It’s unbelievable. We had to check with multiple people to make sure that we won and still we couldn’t believe it. We all come from very poor families with lots of debt and liabilities.”

Cherumannil Baby, 62, said the money would finally enable her to rebuild her house that was washed away in the floods that devastated Kerala in 2018, while 49-year-old Lakshmi spoke of her relief of having money to pay for her daughter’s schooling. Leela, 56, said she could finally pay for surgery for her daughter.

For K Bindu, however, the win was bittersweet. Last year, she had lost her husband to kidney failure, after the family had been unable to afford a transplant for him, and he had often bought lottery tickets in the hope of funding his treatment.

Kuttimalu, 72, also among the winners, told the BBC that she had not had enough money to contribute 25 rupees (25p) towards the ticket, but another in the group had helped her out with half.

“We agreed we would get an equal share if we won anything,” said Kuttimalu. “We didn’t expect to win such a huge amount of money.”

Sheeja, the chairperson of the Haritha Karma Sena, the waste collection group in which the women work, said she was delighted that luck had come upon the 11 women.

“These are extremely hard-working people who go to great lengths to make ends meet,” she said. “It’s very surprising but I am very happy for them.”