KOLKATA, West Bengal: Recently, West Bengal has joined Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra to adopt Bandicoot robot for the mechanical cleaning of sewers in the capital city of Kolkata. This Robot is being used in 18 states and 3 union territories to revolutionalise sanitation ecosystems in the respective states and union territories and also eliminate the age-old practice of manual scavenging. The move is also a massive boost for Genrobotics, the creator of the Bandicoot robot, as Kolkata is amongst the largest metropolitan cities in India.
Bandicoot is a remotely-operated robot specifically designed to eliminate human intervention in the cleaning of sewers. Many people have lost their lives in the past during sewage cleaning operations as toxic gases are abundant in there. Bandicoot robot is equipped with an advanced bucket system that efficiently cleans manholes in a very short time.
Debashish Sen, Chairman, New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA), said, “We aim to bring about a ground-breaking transformation across West Bengal with the implementation of Bandicoot in NKDA. Through our ‘robohole’ initiative, we seek to deploy more Bandicoot robots across Kolkata to enhance the capabilities of our sanitation workers and provide a time-efficient solution.”