Now, an app to spread COVID-19 awareness among city's manual scavengers

In December 2019 social worker and lawyer Abha Singhs public interest litigation PIL was heard in the Bombay High Court The petition raised concerns over the increasing number of sewer deaths in Mumbai despite manual scavenging and unprotected sewer operations being bannedManual scavenging is modern day untouchability and violation of Article 17 of the Constitution Singhs plea said The petition pointed out that in 2019 12 persons died while cleaning sewers in Maharashtra and protective gear was not provided to anyLogo of the app OAISAVThe PIL further indicated that the provisions of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act 2013 PEMSR Act 2013 and the rules made thereunder PEMSR Rules 2013 are not being complied withCOVID the death wishHowever this is just the tip of the iceberg says the Open Academic Research OAR that works in the field of advanced research and education OAR has now created an app to help sanitation workers Manual scavenging involves humans cleaning clogged sewage and human excreta With the outbreak of the Coronavirus infection sanitation workers are at a greater risk Manual scavengers are officially unrecognised frontline workers who clean human biowaste which includes SARSCoV2 contaminatedwaste from the hospitals diagnostic centres and quarantine centres The challenge has been to make them aware of the dangers of contracting COVID19 and its repercussions on their lives says Satyajit Mitra MD and CEO OARDr Harish Sasikumar Satyajit Mitra and Dr Siddharth GhoshThe risk has grown following the pandemic since this community has no access to information and is largely unaware of public health measures for its prevention and protection Inperson training is out of question currently given the rules of social distancingTechnology to the rescueThe OAR team decided that filmbased education was the answer Dr Harish Sasikumar has shaped the concept by working with OARs young scientists and scriptwriters photographers and illustrators He proposed to develop an open source platform called Open Automated Interpretation of Social Awareness Videos OAISAV says Dr Siddharth Ghosh director of science and vision OAR GroupOAR is collaborating with GAIUS a hyperlocal community platform that enables content creation and access among local communities GAIUS has been actively working with the Government of Maharashtra for COVID19related information broadcast Dr Arjuna Sathaseelan cofounder GAIUS will ensure dissemination of information among the community of manual scavengersEngagement is keyDr Ghosh explains that the GAUIS application is already popular among lowincome communities They also hope to convert some users into volunteers or peerinstructors The exercise will be incentivised by providing the volunteers with datapacks and smartphones or tablets free of costLanguage though has been the biggest hurdle while making awareness videos India speaks so many different languages The current version of OAISAV can translate the awareness videos that do not contain text With this anyone with interesting content can collaborate with us and make a video in their language adds Dr Sasikumar Postdoctoral Research Fellow at OAR and PhD from the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering Indian Institute of Science BengaluruIf everything goes according to plan the team will be able to make the beta version of OAISAV available to the public within a month With a nominal userinterface we will publish it as an opensource software so that anyone who is interested can work on improving it To manage the project technically and financially we are looking to collaborate with interested parties including telephone and Internet service providers he addsThe lives lostThe Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment MSJE in a reply to a question by NCP Rajya Sabha MP Vandana Chavan revealed that 282 sanitation workers have died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks in the country between 2016 and 2019 The highest number of deaths 40 was recorded in Tamil Nadu followed by Haryana which recorded 31 deaths in manholes Delhi and Gujarat recorded 30 deaths each followed by Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh each recording 27 deaths While the year 2016 accounted for 50 deaths 83 sanitation workers died due to suffocation in septic tanks and sewers in 2017 and 66 deaths were recorded in 2018 Till November 2019 the death count across the country stood at 83 These figures the Ministry maintained were based on the number of FIRs filed by the police in respective statesCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news