India's premier institute has developed the country's first septic tank or manhole cleaning robot.
The prototype sanitation droid could help Prime Minister Narendra Modi achieve his Clean India Mission (Swachch Bharat Abhiyaan).
The robot cleaner also offers an end-to-end solution to replace manual scavenging. Although the Supreme Court of India directed all states in 2014 to abolish manual scavenging, so far only a few have been able to achieve that goal.
The Homosep Atom technology was developed by a start-up nurtured by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) Technology Business Incubator (TBI) of IIT-Madras.
The developer has tested the technology in sixteen cities in India, including Chennai and Madurai.
The application will help municipalities to clean lanes of densely populated areas, "targeting septic tanks associated with large apartments, housing boards, and individual houses."
"Sanitary workers were empowered with manhole cleaning robots that helped them clean the manholes from outside and avoid going inside the toxic environment, thus providing dignity to the sanitary workers," DST said in a press release on Monday.
"The startup specialises in developing miniature robots, including India's 1st 90mm water robot and 120mm sewer robot, capable of navigating through pipelines below 100mm to address contamination challenges in water-sewer pipelines. The exposure it received through support from DST ensured that the solutions were both sustainable and scalable," it added.