Manhole Desilting Machine

unfunded

2019 saw the highest number of manual scavenging deaths in the past five years- 110 workers were killed while cleaning sewers and septic tanks. This project is aimed at eradicating the manual scavenging process, i.e literally remove man from manhole at all costs. The fund would be used to donate 30 Novel Manhole Desilting machines to municipalities chosen by the donors across India. This will eliminate need for human scavenging by 1000 workers. Generate employment for 100 municipality workers, and 30 factory workers. The project was worked on by a team of Product Design & Engineering students from Centre for Product design & Manufacturing [CPDM], Indian Institute of Science [IISc], under the guidance of professors, and mentors from Society for Innovation & Development [SID], IISc. The design & development has happened over an year and currently a third functional prototype has been designed and tested. We have developed an industry partner with current capacity of producing 30 units for an amount of INR 2 Crores in two month. As well as training, re-training and employing workers to operate this machine. To eliminate manual scavenging and manhole cleaning by humans completely across India we will need about 10k machines. We can scale this up by developing more vendors if we receive additional grants. Also, the functionality, usability and aesthetics of the current desilting machine prototype will be enhanced through strategic design intervention.