MCG will deploy robots to clean sewers, end manual scavenging

GURUGRAM: Days after Delhi CM Arving Kejriwal unveiled 200 mechanical scavenging machines, MCG announced it has acquired a state-of-the-art

robot

as part of a pilot project to eradicate

manual scavenging

in Gurugram, which, while banned within MCG’s jurisdiction, is widely practised across the city.


The project was inaugurated on Wednesday by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar at the

PWD

rest house. The robot has been designed by

IITians

from Kerala, said MCG officials.

Called

Bandicoot

2.0, officials said they have procured only one unit as of now. “We got one Bandicoot as a pilot, and will start using it soon. Manual scavenging is an inhuman practice which is banned,” said MCG commissioner Yashpal Yadav. “The robot can reach deep into clogged sewers and mechanically clear the waste.”

He added anyone found involved in facilitating manual scavenging in the city is liable to be punished under law.

Officials said an older version of the Bandicoot, developed by a group of young engineers from Kerala-based Genrobotic Innovations Private Limited, was tested in some municipalities of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

“The chief minister inspected the functioning of this robot,” an official statement said.

According to officials, Gurugram is the first municipality in north India to acquire Bandicoot as a mechanical alternative to manual scavenging. “Not only is it meant to end manual scavenging but the project also dovetails with a wider government effort aimed at indegenisation of technology,” officials said.

It’s also aimed at accentuating the government’s flagship schemes like Make In India, Swachh Bharat and Start Up India, according to officials.

However, officials could not immediately disclose where the sole Bandicoot 2.0 will be put into service first.

Manual scavenging is an old problem in Gurugram, where poor labourers from across the country are hired by private contractors to clean up clogged sewers.

The scavengers have to plunge into

septic tanks

full of poisonous fumes to unclog sewers, which often results in their death due to asphyxiation. In 2017, at least three such manual scavengers died at Hero Honda Chowk, trying to save a colleague who fell unconscious while cleaning a septic tank.