Two workers, N Murugan and A Pandidurai were killed on January 22 while they were removing a block in the underground drainage system in Coimbatore. In another incident earlier this month at Mumbai, a contractor Vilas Mhaskar and two labourers, Santosh Waghmare and Prafulla Sarab, also died in a similar manner. “The numbers are alarming. According to a survey conducted by Sulabh International, more than 4.4 million people are engaged in manual scavenging. According to a newspaper report, 22,327 cases of manhole deaths were reported till 2013,” says Vimal Govind, CEO of GenRobotics, a Thiruvananthapuram-based company that has developed Bandicoot, a robot that eliminates the need for manual scavenging.
Apart from exposure to the filth and waste in sewers, there are also poisonous gases like carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide that makes entering into a manhole dangerous. “The workers often do not use safety gear and are stigmatised in society. My company tries to create a change in their lives,” says Vimal. He has a team of 37 people that works with him.
The 24-year-old was interested in robotics from his college days and developed a metallic exoskeleton as a part of his engineering project in 2015. “It garnered media attention and in 2017, I was contacted by M Sivasankar, the IT Secretary of the Government of Kerala, to develop a machine to clean manholes.” He admits that he did not know about the issue till then. “It was a shock to know that technology was not used to do this work. I interacted with workers before coming up with this innovation,” he says.
The project was supported by the Kerala Start Up Mission and the first prototype was made of plywood. The metallic beta version was developed in February 2018 and was used to clean five manholes on the day of its launch in Thiruvananthapuram. “These were near the Regional Cancer Centre and the drains were full of bio-medical waste. We did a trial run for three months in the city and found that the weight of the machine (150 kg) was a problem and it was terrain-specific. Our current version addresses both these issues.”
Bandicoot weighs around 60 kg and is customisable. “The depth and diameter of the manholes vary in different areas and so we have options for semi and fully automatic machines. They come in a corrosion-resistant stainless steel and carbon fibre and are dirt, water and flash proof. Bandicoot can clean a manhole in five minutes. It collects the waste with a robotic arm and uses a water jet to clear sewer blockages. It also has hydrogen sulphate and methane gas detectors.”
The company trains manual scavengers to operate the machine. “There is a monitor through which the operator can watch the machine at work. We have trained about 80 workers so far.” Bandicoot is now sold in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Andra Pradesh and New Delhi. Says Vimal, “I plan to expand the market. It will soon be launch in Bhutan and the UAE.”