Between 2014 and 2016, as many as 1,268 men died while cleaning sewers, according to Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), an organisation that works to eradicate manual scavenging.
It has been 25 years since manual scavenging — a practice rooted in the caste system and carried out largely by Dalits — was outlawed, and five years since the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 stated that it is the ‘duty of local authorities and other agencies to use modern technology for cleaning of sewers’.
But it is only now, and with no help from the central government, that the first technological innovations are emerging.
Bandicoot-India’s first ‘manhole cleaning robot’ which has been developed by a start up named Genrobotics Innovations.
With funds from the Kerala Startup Mission, and several months of intensive research, they came up with a ‘spider robot’ that can stretch its legs and immerse a camera into the manhole so that the operator can guide its automated arm to shovel debris or direct a water jet into sewer lines to unclog them.
It is a Semiautomatic robotic system for manhole and sewer line cleaning aimed at the complete elimination of manual scavenging for cleaning the manhole and positioning the pressurized jet in an accurate manner in water jet cleaning.
Bandicoot can have more features over the manual scavenging and it has a vital role to play. Bandicoot is the key product to the world of innovation.
Bandicoot can perform the work of five human beings within minutes, and it is available in automatic and semi-automatic modes.
It never limits the job opportunities for sewer workers rather developing their mode of living.
People like actor Amitabh Bachchan and industrialist like Anand Mahindra are willing to fund the projects involving mass adoption of these kind of machines so that no human has to die.
This is a Syndicate News-Feed