Coimbatore : Bringing much respite to the Sanitary workers and possibly putting an end to manual scavenging, the City administration on Sunday has used it's first Bandicoot robot, the system for manhole and sewer line cleaning aimed at the complete elimination of manual scavenging.
Coimbatore : Bringing much respite to the Sanitary workers and possibly putting an end to manual scavenging, the City administration on Sunday has used it's first Bandicoot robot, the system for manhole and sewer line cleaning aimed at the complete elimination of manual scavenging.
Launching the operation of Bandicoot in the city, Municipal Administration Minister SP Velumani on Sunday officially inaugurated the first Bandicoot-2.0 machine created by Genrobotics, a Thiruvananthapuram-based startup to clean the manholes in the city.
The Bandicoot 2.0 was officially launched by the Minister at the Chief minister special grievance meeting held at R.S.Puram Boys Higher Secondary School here on Sunday.
While addressing the gathering, Minister S.P. Velumani said that the machine could help save lives lost during manual cleaning of manholes due to asphyxiation.
Earlier, the Bandicoot robot was sponsored by Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and was handed over to the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation during an event here on October 1.
The co-founder of Genrobotics, K. Rashid said that the robotic arm of Bandicoot is capable of penetrating through the manhole up to 30 feet deep and collect the accumulated sludge.
He also opined that "Operating the robot is not a very hard task and the sanitary workers can use it at ease after basic training. The equipment has been designed keeping in mind the end user, the workers who would operate it."
Genrobotics team also conducted a live demo of their robot clearing the manhole near Gandhi Park in the presence of Minister S.P. Velumani and other corporation officials.
State Adi Dravidar Welfare Committee member, S. Selvakumar said the government should buy more of this machine for cleaning manholes all over the State which will annihilate deaths caused during manual cleaning of manholes.
"To make sanitary workers operate the Bandicoot robot hassle-free, special training shall be imparted in the coming days" added Selvakumar.
"Mosquito larvae shooter", the machine used to spray Abate insecticide to kill larvaes of Dengue causing mosquitoes has been purchased by CCMC from a private firm in Coimbatore. The machine has a cylinder capacity to hold 60 litres of larvicide and can be used to spray to a distance upto 100 feet.
The machine which can be mounted on a three wheeler is said to be a better alternative to the traditional sprayer which is manually carried by sanitary workers. In the near future, CCMC plans to buy 6 units of this machine to speed up dengue prevention measure.
Minister S.P.Velumani inspected the machines and watched a demo of its operations at the event held today.
Coimbatore District Collector K Rajamani, Corporation Commissioner J Sravan Kumar, Deputy Commissioner S Prasanna Ramasamy, Deputy Revenue Officer D Ramaduraimurugan were also present at the event.