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| World Toilet Day is held on November 19 each year and is a campaign to raise awareness of issues surrounding health and sanitation |
Hundreds of
"manual scavengers" die each year cleaning out sewers in cities
across India but a machine unveiled for Monday's World Toilet Day could help to
end that tragic record.
Thousands
of mostly low-caste Indians are employed in one of the world's dirtiest jobs
unclogging human waste from underground pipes.
More than
1,300 have died, mainly suffocated, in the past three years, according to the
Sulabh International charity.
The men are
called "manual scavengers" because they mainly scrape the waste with
their bare hands without any protective gear or masks.
The machine
launched by Sulabh injects high pressure water into the tunnels and tanks and
then collects the waste with a mechanical bucket operated from ground level.
A remote
control inspection camera generates high-resolution images of the sewer system.
Bindeshwar
Pathak, the Sulabh International founder, said that forcing humans into the
sewers was "demeaning".
"We
hear so often the tragic news about sewer workers losing their lives," he
said.
"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."
Indian
lawmakers have passed several laws aiming to stamp out the age-old practice of
manual scavenging, the latest in 2013. But many scavengers are still used
through subcontractors.
In rural
areas, women "scavengers" clean out primitive non-flush toilets with
basic tools, although the practice is now on the wane.
Pathak also
unveiled a giant Indian-style toilet pot to raise awareness about sanitation in
a country where some 150 million people do not have home toilets.
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