Robotic Systems and Manual Scavenging in India: A Five-Year Research Agenda for Zero Human Entry

Abstract

Despite legal prohibition, manual scavenging persists across India due to a combination of regulatory gaps, economic constraints, and the absence of affordable robotic alternatives capable of operating in India's non-standardized underground infrastructure. This paper presents a five-year research agenda for achieving zero human entry in Indian sewer and septic tank maintenance. The agenda is organized around four research pillars: (1) developing affordable, edge-deployed VLA models trained on Indian sewer geometry; (2) building robust sim-to-real transfer pipelines that account for the extreme variability of hand-built underground infrastructure; (3) establishing ethical data collection practices that compensate sanitation workers as domain experts; and (4) creating policy frameworks that align municipal procurement with robotic capability timelines. We draw on SARAL's ongoing SafAI programme to ground each pillar in current technical capabilities and identify specific research gaps. The paper argues that the primary barrier to robotic sewer maintenance in India is not fundamental AI capability but rather the absence of India-specific training data, the cost structure of existing robotic platforms, and institutional inertia in municipal procurement. We propose specific milestones, resource requirements, and partnership structures needed to close these gaps within five years.

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