The robots will be procured for 27 municipal corporations in the state and used for cleaning manholes in their jurisdictions, Sanjay Shirsat said
State Social Justice Minister Sanjay Shirsat said that we will first conduct a one-month trial with the new robot in the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation. Pic/X
Maharashtra Minister Sanjay Shirsat on Tuesday said that the state government will procure around 100 robots for cleaning manholes which is currently being done manually, reported the PTI.
The robots will be procured for 27 municipal corporations in the state and used for cleaning manholes in their jurisdictions, Sanjay Shirsat said, according to the PTI.
Talking to reporters, State Social Justice Minister Shirsat said, "We will first conduct a one-month trial with the new robot in the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation. After successful testing, we will procure 100 robots," as per the PTI.
He said the social justice department would supply the robots to the urban development department, which would then distribute them to the municipal corporations.
"These new robots are indigenously made and more capable than the existing ones with low capacity. The ones we will procure will have a higher capacity for cleaning and waste segregation," Sanjay Shirsat said, the news agency reported.
The announcement comes after the Union Ministry for Social Justice and Empowerment commissioned a social audit of sanitation works that highlighted the state government's failure to address the deaths of sanitation workers.
A Union government-commissioned social audit across Mumbai, Pune, Parbhani, Satara, and Shirur has exposed 'critical failures' by authorities and contractors in protecting sanitation workers in Maharashtra, 18 of whom died between 2021 and 2024, reported the PTI.
The audit said safety protocols, protective gear, and emergency response mechanisms were largely absent in all the five places surveyed.
The 'Social Audit Report On The Death Of Sanitary Workers 2021-24' by the Maharashtra State Society for Social Audit and Transparency, a unit established on directives of Union Ministry of Rural Development, also pulled up urban local bodies (ULBs) for failing to formally register workers, which left them without legal protection or access to welfare schemes, according to the PTI.
The audit said safety protocols, protective gear, and emergency response mechanisms were largely absent in all the five places surveyed, despite there being a clear legal obligation under Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation (PEMSR) Act 2013, the news agency reported.
(with PTI inputs)
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