In a bid to eradicate the banned yet prevalent practice of manual scavenging, the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) has started deploying manhole cleaning robot ‘Bandicoot’, reports News18.

The first of the five bandicoots was deployed on Thursday (30 January) by the Uttar Pradesh Minister of Urban Development Ashutosh Tandon and Lucknow Mayor Sanyukta.

A necessary replacement to manual scavenging in India -- Bandicoot -- a type of manhole cleaning robot, will now come to the rescue against the banned yet prevalent practice in Lucknow.

According to the report, the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) has worked out an arrangement between two private companies as a pilot project under the Smart Cities Mission.

LMC officials said that the job of cleaning drains in the city had now been delegated to Suez, a French-based utility company that operates in the water treatment and waste management sectors. It will be accompanied by a Kerala based start-up called Genrobotics. Together, they will be procuring Bandicoot.

According to an official of Suez India, operating the robot is as simple as playing a mobile game. Besides, the robot can perform every action of man, inside the manhole, the official said.

"Bandicoot is successfully being used by eight states which includes Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Haryana and Punjab. The robot was designed to end the evil of manual scavenging from India,” said Devesh Sharma, Marketing and business development, Genrobotics.