As per the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, as many as 282 people have died while cleaning sewers and septic tanks in the country between 2016 and November 2019.
Among the States, Tamil Nadu has recorded 40 deaths, the highest in number, in these four years.
This is followed by Haryana with 31 deaths, and Gujarat and Delhi with 30 deaths each.
There has been rapid and unplanned urbanization in the above states.
There are about 60,440 manual scavengers identified across the country, in 17 States.
More than half of them about 35,472, have been identified from Uttar Pradesh alone.
The Parliament had enacted the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 which came in force from December 6, 2013.
Sanitation is a State subject and the people for cleaning of sewers and septic tanks are employed by local bodies.
Genrobotics is an Indian robotics company headquartered in Trivandrum, Kerala.
In 2018, GenRobotics released the Bandicoot robot for cleaning sewers.