Manual scavenging is banned in India yet thousands of people are engaged in this profession. The labourers are not provided with safety equipments and are left to clean the sewer. Humans plunge into the manholes to remove the clogged waste with their bare hands. Many die inhaling toxic gas inside the sewer. As a ray of hope, a Kerala based startup, Genrobotics under Kerala Startup Mission have introduced a robot, Bandicoot to clean the man holes.
The group of Nine young engineers have designed a spider structure robot with a bucket system to clean the man holes in India in the coming years. The robot can clean up to eight manholes in four hours. The trials of the robot was successfully conducted under the supervision of Kerala Startup Mission and Kerala Water Authority.The aim of these engineers is to eliminate the social injustice of Manual scavenging.