Gujarat’s Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) has got a robotic scavenging machine to eradicate manual scavenging for good.
The mechanized product is designed to clear sewage choking. Also, it is eco-friendly and is operated by solar energy.
“The robotic scavenging machine is designed basically to clear sewage choking. It has cameras for live streaming, location, and GPS-enabled monitoring options. Along with the west waste, it is also equipped to collect plastic, and metallic objects during the process,” said MD of Club First Robotics Private Ltd to ANI.
India has been fighting out manual scavenging for more than 71 years now.
In the late 1950s, freedom fighter G. S. Lakshman Iyer banned manual scavenging when he was the chairman of Gobichettipalayam Municipality. With this, it became the first local body to ban it officially.
After six states passed resolutions requesting the Central Government to frame a law, “The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993”, drafted by the Ministry of Urban Development under the Narasimha Rao government was passed by Parliament in 1993. The act punishes the employment of scavengers or the construction of dry (non-flush) latrines with imprisonment for up to one year and/or a fine of Rs. 2,000.
Also, read: This American Woman Is Selflessly Building Toilets And Roads In Rural India With Her Money.
Sanitation is a State subject as per entry 6 in the Constitution. Under this, in February 2013 the Delhi Government announced that they were banning manual scavenging. In the same year in December, the Indian Government also formulated Rules-2013 called “The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Rules 2013” or “M.S. Rules 2013”. The hearing on 27 March 2014 was held on manual scavenging of writ petition number 583 of 2003, and Supreme Court has issued final orders and case is disposed of with various directions to the Central Government.
The broad objectives of the act are to eliminate unsanitary latrines, prohibit the employment of manual scavengers and the hazardous manual cleaning of sewer, and septic tanks, and maintain a survey of manual scavengers and their rehabilitation.
In 2020, the Government is onto Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (Amendment) Bill, which calls for complete mechanization of cleaning sewers and septic tanks.