India’s river divers risk health in search for hidden treasures

They go to the river to hunt for coins, trinkets, discarded bottles and shards of metal, and wood that can be sold in Delhi's booming scrap market

A man searches for valuable items thrown by Hindu devotees as religious offerings in the waters of river Yamuna in New Delhi, India, Jun 27, 2025. REUTERS

At the crack of dawn, Ramu Gupta slings a blue bag onto his shoulder and heads to the Yamuna River in the Indian capital in search of his fortune.

The 67-year-old is one of hundreds of gotakhors, or divers, who go to the river to hunt for coins, trinkets, discarded bottles and shards of metal and wood that can be sold in Delhi's booming scrap market.

“I earn approximately 5,000 Indian rupees ($58) in a month from this,” said Gupta, who spends his days working as a toilet cleaner near the shack where he lives. He saves the extra income for his two grandchildren, hoping to split it between them when they grow up.

Hindus consider rivers as holy and pilgrims toss offerings including coins, coconuts and flowers into the water for the "river goddess” who sustains lives by giving water for drinking and irrigation.

They regard the Yamuna River, which originates in the Himalayas, as one of the most sacred in India, cremating the dead on its banks and throwing their most precious possessions, including jewellery, into the waters along with their loved ones' ashes.

Gupta and his fellow divers swim beneath the polluted waters, often risking their health in their search for riches.

He is at the river in the morning and evening seven days a week, and goes to his regular work during the day – a routine that he has followed for 35 years.

Arvind Kumar, 29, has been working on the river full-time for nearly 12 years.

“There is no fixed income from this kind of work,” said Kumar, who earns up to 600 Indian rupees per day on average, below the government's minimum daily wage of 710 Indian rupees for an unskilled worker.

Mostly, the divers collect coins, bottles and plastics.

Occasionally they might discover some slivers of gold. More rarely, gold rings and necklaces.

Sometimes, they also find bodies, and then police might call on them to help retrieve them. If they see people carried away by the currents, they might try to rescue them.

This makes the divers “happier than the person rescued,” Gupta said.

A devout Hindu, Gupta said he was not afraid of the river because he had the protection of “Mata Rani”, the Hindu mother goddess.

“So why be scared?" he asked. “If she wants, I will die, if she wants me to live, she’ll save me.”