LEH: To do away with manual scavenging, the Municipal Committee (MC) of Leh town in Ladakh has inducted a robot for cleaning sewerage.

Named Bandioot, the robot has been developed by Genrobotics and inducted on trial basis to mechanise the sewer cleaning process.

"It is also in accordance with the advisory issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to set up an emergency sanitation response unit at the district level under the responsible sanitation authority to eliminate hazardous manual cleaning of sewers and septic tanks," a spokesperson said.

Leh MC Executive Officer Stanzin Rabgais said the robot was procured after seeing its operational performance in 17 states and UTs of the country. Leh DC Srikant Suse issued directions to train sanitation workers in robot operation.