Durgapur: Cleaners will no longer lose their lives to toxic gases in manholes or dangerous drains. Emphasizing the use of modern technology and robotics in sanitation systems, the state government has taken a groundbreaking decision. State Minister for Municipal Affairs and Urban Development, Agnimitra Paul, made this statement while participating in a special training program for sanitation workers at Durgapur's Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI).
For a long time, tragic incidents of many sanitation workers falling ill or even dying while engaging in high-risk jobs like cleaning manholes have been occurring. To put an end to this inhumane and dangerous practice, the administration is now taking strict steps. The Minister has clearly stated that from now on, modern machinery and robotic technology will be used completely instead of humans for cleaning drainage channels or manholes.
In several areas, experimental work has already begun to extract waste and sludge from manholes using suction methods via special state-of-the-art machines. The specialty of these modern machines is that they have a system to separate sludge and clean water. Consequently, workers will not have to descend into the depths of manholes under any circumstances, yet the cleaning work will be completed flawlessly.
Minister Agnimitra Paul stated that an initiative is underway to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CMERI to bring this technology closer to the general public and into every municipal corporation in the state. Furthermore, delivering a stern message regarding the safety of sanitation workers, the Minister announced that if any contractor company's workers are forced to descend into manholes risking their lives, ignoring all warnings, an FIR will be immediately filed against that contractor as strict legal action. This decision by the state government will bring a touch of technological modernization on one hand, while saving the precious lives of many marginalized laborers on the other.
