Four engineering students from Kerala developed Bandicoot, India’s first robotic manhole-cleaning machine, after a 2015 sewer tragedy highlighted the dangers of manual scavenging. Launched through their startup, the robot enables safe, efficient sewer cleaning without human entry and is now deployed across 22 Indian states and four countries. The innovation has transformed hazardous sanitation work, trained former manual scavengers as robot operators, and encouraged wider adoption of AI-powered robotic sewer-cleaning technologies across Indian cities.