GUWAHATI: For the first time, the manholes in Guwahati will be cleaned by robots. Guwahati development department (GDD) minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya flagged off the Bandicoot (V2.0) manhole cleaning robot under Guwahati municipal corporation (GMC) on Tuesday.
These robots will be used for the solid waste management in the city. It has been developed by a start-up named Genrobotics under the Make in India initiative, funded by CSR of Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL).
Guwahati is the first city in the north-eastern region to introduce the manhole cleaning robots. According to reports, later such robots will be introduced in other towns of the state.
The manhole cleaning robots will help to end the practice of manual scavenging in Guwahati. It needs to be mentioned that in India, as many as 110 manual scavengers lost their lives in 2019.
In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on March 17, Minister of state for social justice and empowerment Ramdas Athawale said that 68 such deaths were reported across India in 2018, as per a report by the National Commission of Safai Karamcharis.
“The total deaths in 2017 were 93,” the reply read.
