A Kerala Startup Is Helping Expunge Manual Scavenging, One Clever Robot At A Time

“Manual scavenging,” the practice of a human being descending into an open pit (called a “manhole”) to clear out human excrement by hand, is an age-old, familiar foe in Indian society.

Though it’s a prohibited activity in India since December 2013, not all districts in the country have declared themselves to be free of manual scavenging. Only about 73 per cent of the districts have, leaving a gulf that’s yet to be crossed — though the union government maintains that manual scavenging is no longer in practice today.

Over 58,000 people were identified as “eligible manual scavengers” in the 2013 and 2018 surveys and handed Rs 40,000 cash payout each for rehabilitation. They were made eligible for subsidies and loans if they wished to start their own businesses. Some of them were connected to skilling programmes.

Ultimately, there mustn’t be a single person engaged in this dangerous activity.

While manual scavenging makes its way out, technology — which is transforming nearly every facet of human society — can step in to speed up this transition away from human beings for the job of cleaning sewers, septic tanks, toilets, and drains. Such a forward-looking approach goes a couple of steps further than the Centre’s Namaste scheme, which aims for mechanisation of sewer work, by replacing man with machine.

A startup in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala’s capital city, has been showing the way by vowing to change manhole to robohole. GenRobotic Innovations has developed robots, made entirely in India, to end manual scavenging. The national-award-winning startup calls their mission to eliminate manual scavenging through the use of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) "Mission Robohole."

Genrobotics was founded in 2017 by four engineering graduates — Vimal Govind M K, Arun George, Nikhil N P and Rashid K. It was incubated by the Kerala State Startup Mission and now operates from the TechnoPark in the Kerala state capital.

Their flagship robot is called the Bandicoot, named after the rat species in the Indian subcontinent and the wider Southeast Asian region that moves comfortably underground. “By leveraging robotics and artificial intelligence, the Bandicoot Robot enters and cleans manholes, eliminating the need for sanitation workers to expose themselves to dangerous environments,” the company says.

The made-in-India Bandicoot is a highly portable and manoeuvrable machine, which makes it a good fit for the congested, narrow roads typical of our urban environments.

The robot consists of two major units — a stand unit and a robotic drone unit. The latter's job is to descend into the sewer manhole for cleaning or unblocking operations.

The lightweight robot made of carbon fibre is placed over the manhole in need of cleaning. The robot operator gets a good look inside the manhole with the Bandicoot’s advanced, high-grade-waterproof cameras, which work even in low-light or night conditions. The imagery shows up on a 13-inch high-definition (HD) display.

The operator then deploys the extendable, multi-functioning robotic arm, which possesses picking, grabbing, and shovelling abilities, to grab and collect waste like a surgeon from inside the manhole. The waste, typically consisting of heavy rock, sand, silt, and sludge, is then dumped into an expandable bucket system joined to the robotic arm.

This operation is made possible by the four robotic legs, each one adjustable separately, which provide the much-needed stability, agility, and movement within the dingy manhole environment.

Meanwhile, toxic gases, if any, are detected by the robotic system, courtesy sensors. In the manual scavenging mode, these toxic fumes would knock people unconscious by asphyxiation or even cause a loss of life.

Claimed to be the world’s first robotic scavenger, the Bandicoot has two variants depending on the scale of the clean-up required — the smaller “Mini” and larger “Mobility Plus” versions. Whereas the Bandicoot Mini is solar-powered and comes in a compact size, the larger, advanced Mobility Plus features vehicle mounting and an integrated waste dumping system.

A separate Wilboar variant has been developed for cleaning confined spaces, such as for sludge removal in petroleum tanks, while the G-Beetle is meant for the cleaning and maintenance of skyscrapers. Wilboar has even been exported to the Malaysian market.

Besides sanitation, Genrobotics also has offerings in the medical space. Their gait-training robot, called the G-Gaiter, is designed to help patients with gait disabilities, due to stroke, spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's disease, and other medical issues, to be able to walk independently.

Genrobotics’ work caught the eye of leaders early. An early version of the Bandicoot (2.0) was launched at the International Sanitation Convention, 2018, in New Delhi in the presence of no less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the then-secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres.

The Bandicoot meets at least nine of the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals that are at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Thus far, the robotics company has deployed more than 350 robots across four countries and 23 states. The robots are all built in compliance with the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013. Notably, Indore, adjudged India’s cleanest city for many years in a row, has been an early user of Bandicoot.

Through #MissionRobohole, “the Pride of Kerala” has also improved the lives of over 3,300 people by offering training and awareness programmes, health camps, and other support, thereby enabling a safe and clean workplace for sanitation workers.

“There are many who worry about robots 'dehumanising' the society. This is one area in which I believe they will do precisely the opposite. We need more of these,” Anand Mahindra, Chairman of Mahindra Group, has said.

Most importantly, the union government is fully on board the plan to switch from man to machine for the job of manhole cleaning.

In her budget presentation for 2023-24, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke about a 100 per cent switch to mechanical desludging of sewers. “All cities and towns will be enabled for 100 per cent mechanical desludging of septic tanks and sewers to transition from manhole to machine-hole mode,” she said.

With the will of the administration and the support of technology, manual scavenging might soon be relegated to pages of history.

Also Read: How Home Grown High-Tech Can Help In Eliminating Manual Scavenging