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Chennai: Now 'bandicoots' to clean storm water drains

CHENNAI: After several instances of men entering storm water drains to clear silt and sewage that is not supposed to be there, the city corporation has taken steps to stop the process.

It plans to acquire 15 'bandicoots', manufactured by Kerala-based GenRobotic Innovations, that can clean drains with their 'hands'.

Each zone will get one robot .

This is part of the plan to eradicate manual scavenging which, despite being declared illegal, continues across the country, including in Chennai and Tamil Nadu .

On Thursday, a bandicoot de-silted a storm water drain manhole on Raja Muthiah Road behind Ripon Buildings as Greater Chennai Corporation commissioner G Prakash, deputy commissioner (works) Govinda Rao, deputy commissioner (health) Madhusudhan Reddy and other officials watched.

A senior official told TOI this was a step towards mechanising silt removal.

"Sewage is not supposed to be in storm water drains, but it is there in some places. So, cleaning of drains is not exactly manual scavenging, but still it is hard labour," he said.

Arun George, one of the four founders of GenRobotic Innovations, said the robot had water-proof IP-68 night-vision cameras which can relay work in the drain. Its robotic arms can also scrape sludge or sewage or any semi-solid or solid material like a human hand. "What takes a human two hours will take this robot only 20 minutes," he said. This doesn't mean the robots, each costing Rs 36 lakh, will take away jobs as the company is training workers to operate them, George added.

Robots are already being used in Thanjavur, Kumbakonam, Tuticorin and Coimbatore.

Removing the estimated 3.7lakh tonnes of silt from the 2,076km storm water drain network in Chennai, as per official figures, is a huge task. Almost 80% of the network is de-silted once every two years, say sources. However, it is slow and dangerous. "In areas where there are no sewage connections, raw sewage is let out into drains. When cleaners enter the drains, they are affected by the noxious fumes and in some cases, die," said an official. This can be avoided if the bandicoot is used.

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