Young students have developed a mechanical device that hopes to revamp the sewage cleaning system
Five enterprising students of Shiv Nadar School have devised a mechanism that could be the answer to India’s manual sewage cleaning system. As part of their IT curriculum, Ansh Gupta, Sarthak Acharya, Palak Yadav, Bahar Dhingra and Anvi Kothari were perplexed about the high fatality of the human scavenging process and felt the urgent need to come up with an alternative sanitization solution.
The student’s new mechanism consists of an LCD screen to monitor visuals at the base of the sewage. A button on the top of the contraption helps the user navigate the device from above the surface. The mechanism is also fitted with a chemical sensor that would detect the hazardous fumes present in the sewage while a speaker attached to the device would help instruct the sanitary worker with the necessary guidance. The equipment is still at its infancy stage, but the students are working on creating a version worthy of mass production at an industrial level.
India’s sewage sanitation has had its fair share of problems over the years. Manual scavenging has a socio-economic context and has been a practice in the country for the longest time. In the last five years, India has witnessed 340 deaths of sewage workers due to the manual cleaning process. The students hope to join hands with NGO’s to be able to get the product to reach the sanitation workers, thereby helping to improve their overall working conditions.
