Detect underground leaks, minister Mathew T Thomas challenges startups

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Water resources minister Mathew T. Thomas has given a fresh challenge to startups to come up with an innovative project to detect leaks in underground pipelines, while chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan offered government support to projects like the manhole cleaning robot 'Bandicoot'. During the launch of Bandicoot at a function on the Kerala Water Authority premises here on Monday, Mr Thomas said the KWA was suffering about 45 percent water loss to leak in underground pipelines, which was difficult to detect. He suggested a KWA Innovation Zone for them.

Mr Vijayan said that Bandicoot developed by startup firm Genrobotics was a recognition to startups in the state as the project was gaining national and international attention. The startups are coming up with out of the box ideas, and the government would ensure support to all socially relevant projects. KWA managing director A. Shainamol said Bandicoot was the outcome of a picture published in a vernacular daily of a manual scavenger neck-deep in sewage in a utility-hole. The CM subsequently wanted to find a solution, and it resulted in Genrobotics developing Bandicoot in about seven months.

Genrobotics chief executive officer Vimal Govind said Bandicoot would not pose a threat to jobs of manual scavengers as they would be trained to operate the robot, which is quite user-friendly. Manual scavenger Satheesh, whose picture got the attention, operated Genrobotics during the launch ceremony and said it was quite easy. Genrobotics already got an invite to present Bandicoot before Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and they are also planning to develop an advanced version, which would be more compact, lighter and easy to operate.