On World Toilet Day 2018, Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, the founder of Sulabh International, unveiled India’s “first sewage cleaning machine” which hopes to end the practice of manual scavenging all over the country.
Called “Hope Machine”, it costs Rs 43 lakh and works by injecting high pressure into the tunnels and tanks, and collects the waste with a mechanical bucket operated from ground level. It can de-choke sewer lines with steel rods that can bend, generates high-resolution images through a remote-controlled inspection camera and uses hydraulics to operate its systems
If a sewer cannot be cleaned by the machine, it also comes with equipment such as a gas-detecting device, high-resolution cameras to look inside the sewers and also comes with protective gears and clothes.
According to Dr Pathak, the machine can save hundreds of “manual scavengers” who die each year cleaning out sewers in cities across India. He added,
“This machine can safely clean the waste matter and it will gradually make manual scavenging redundant. With this machine we hope no person will die in the sewers any more.”
