Professor develops robot to save children trapped in borewells

A 43-year-old college professor from Tamil Nadu has developed a unique robot which can rescue children who accidentally fall into open borewells - answering prayers of parents who have had the misfortune of their children falling into narrow open pits.

M. Manikandan said he was inspired to invent the robot after his own son fell into a borewell almost a decade ago-but was luckily rescued.

"In 2003, while I was engaged in a plumbing job, my three-year old son, who was playing outside, happened to fall in a borewell. He was soon rescued, but this incident made me feel that I should do something," he said.

Not everyone is as lucky though. Reports of parents losing small children who fall into unprotected open pits keep pouring in on a regular basis from across towns and villages.

Professor Manikandan developed the nine-foot-long robot with human-like arms along with clamps resembling fingers that can clutch and pull the trapped child out of the borewell. The robot can be operated with batteries and works with the help of an air piston.

"The concept was to create something which could go into the borewell like a human; a robot which had a human-like hand. I made the first model in 2003," he said of his invention.

Manikandan has also equipped the robot with a night-vision camera that projects the footage onto a television monitor to enable rescue workers to observe the trapped child in order to manoeuvre the robot into the borewell pit properly.

"This (the robot) has been enabled with a modern camera which even functions in the dark. This doesn't need electricity as it can work on batteries. This can take pictures in any depths," he added.

The robot could help authorities save the lives of children who fall into open borewells like the recent incident where Akshata fell 30 feet into a 300 feet deep borewell pit in Bijapur district of Karnataka on June 18.

Rescue workers could not save her life and her slightly decomposed body was retrieved on June 20 despite a marathon digging operation that lasted nearly 50 hours.

In a similar incident, a five-year-old boy, Prince, had fallen into 53 feet and 1.5 wide shafts in Shahbad, in Haryana in July 2006. However, the army was able to save him from the pit after two days.

Incidents like these are not uncommon and this is where the borewell robot developed by Manikandan can come in handy for the rescue workers.

Due to lax laws and negligence on the part of authorities, several children have fallen into deep open borewells across the country.