There has been unprecedented priority given to sanitation under the Swachh Bharat Mission since 2014? By 2019, the government had already spent over Rs 57,000 crore to build nine crore toilets. Researcher and activist Sheeva Dubey, who has been studying the condition of sanitation workers in Mumbai since 2015, says money has been spent on infrastructure but not on people who are involved in the process of cleaning....
Centre for Policy Research fellow Arkaja Singh.. recalls a case when three sewerage workers died in April 2017 in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar. Though the sewerage line belonged to the Delhi Jal Board, it distanced itself saying that the workers had not been contracted either by the DJB or its contractor. “There was no liability proved for anyone except for the workers who died,” she says. -Why one sanitation worker continues to die every five days in Swachh India by Himanshi Dhawan.. Ironically while India was under lockdown, sanitation workers were expected to continue working whether it was to dispose of hazardous waste like masks, PPEs of patients or cleaning drains and pipelines in housing societies.
SLOW ADOPTION OF BOTS
People continue to do this hazardous work despite technological advancements. In 2018, Kerala-based startup Genrobotics developed a robot to clean septic tanks and manholes. Priced at Rs 40 lakh, the robot can be customised to fit each city’s manholes and unclog 10 a day without any human intervention.
3 Sanitation Workers Suffocate To Death In Sewer In Delhi's Lajpat Nagar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdwTOVlM1UE
'Stop Killing Us': Hundreds Gather in Delhi to Protest Sewer Deaths https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ek2Eq62q5Y
Bezwada Wilson, manual scavenging activist, India https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOqn5htg7to
India's manual scavenging problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHOup9Qy7nU
Meet Bandicoot India's new robot that can end manual scavenging https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VChT60sTZSU