Manual scavenging, an abominable
practice that claims several lives across the country every year, could soon be
a thing of the past with a group of young engineers from Kerala developing a
robot to do the sewage cleaning job.
The Kerala Water Authority that
manages the sewage department in the state has already placed orders for 50
robots, christened as Bandicoot.
To market their invention, the young
engineers have started a startup called ‘Genrobotics’. After receiving patent
for the robot from India, the company has now applied for the world patent,
applicable in 150 countries.
Manual scavenging is a caste-based
occupation mainly involving cleaning septic tanks, sewers and gutters.
Despite legal bans, the dehumanising
practice continues in the country. According to one estimate more than 1200
people died from manual scavenging related activities between 2014 and 2016 in
the country.
The start-up claims the Bandicoot is
the tech solution to the social malaise. Genrobotics says it will go global
only after “fixing the country’s nagging problem.”
Apart from sewer lines the robots
can also be pressed into service for other under-water activities.
Death of three sewage workers on the
outskirts of Bangalure two years ago prompted the young techies to think
something out of the box to tackle the problem, which is often being called
India’s shame, said Vimal Govind, the 24-year-old CEO of Genrobotics. Govind is
a mechanical engineer.
“I worked more than one year in the
TCS to earn some money to fund the stage one of the project. We all nine
classmates of MES Engineering College in Kuttipuram came around quickly and
developed the first prototype in six months,” added Rashid K, a software
engineer.
Initially they struggled to find
fund for the project, but now they say money is pouring in from different
sources.
Manufacturing cost of the machine is
somewhere between Rs 3lakh and Rs 5 lakh, Rashid said. Their machine weighs
80kg but the main operating part that goes into the hole weighs only 30 kg.
Once installed atop a clogged sewage
line, a wire carrying camera goes inside the hole and beams pictures of the
problem on the screen atop.
After gauging the problem, the robot
dismantles itself from the main machine and goes into the hole taking tools
such as a shovel or a jet pipe, depending on the magnitude of the problem, and
cleans the system.
Young scientists claim a robot can
manage three workers’ three-hour schedule in 30 minutes.
To operate the machine, the
Genrobotics wants to engage manual scavengers so that they don’t become
jobless.
“Even a small boy can operate our
system. We will train these workers. It is their product. We are planning to
move a proposal under the Prime Minister’s flagship Swachh Bharat scheme to
train them,” said Govind, who recently visited Taiwan for a presentation.
“Our guiding spirit is our former
President A P J Abdul Kalam. He always used to say dream, dream. The young
India is committed to fulfil his dream of becoming a fully developed nation
sans hunger and strife,” said Jaleesh, another member of the team.
He said talks are on to produce
these machines commercially.
Kerala’s IT department, which is the
first in the country to formulate a start-up policy is upbeat over the
achievement of the youngsters.
“The noble product shows social
commitment of these youngsters. Many firms including the BPCL promised help to
take their innovation to the next stage,” said state IT Secretary M Sivasankar.
In an international conference
conducted recently by the American Society of Research, out of 13 papers
submitted, a paper on Bandicoot was selected as the best.
The paper was published in the
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research.
Source:
