Smart Safety Monitoring System for Sewage Workers with Two Way Communication

A large number of sanitation workers die every year due to erratic and lack of facilities available, and harmful toxic gases released while cleaning the sewage. Real time health monitoring systems for such workers will prove helpful. This real time health monitoring device will work in a sewage as a safety equipment. In this paper, the device presented will monitor the pulse rate of a person using a pulse oximetry sensor, the methane concentration and the atmospheric oxygen concentration and provide alert to worker and exterior unit. when parameters deviate from the safe range. This parameters in real time will promptly alert the workers to stay safe and detect toxic gases before any harm.

I. Introduction

In INDIA sewage cleaning form manholes and drains are a difficult and risky job for anyone, but these people/workers are forced to do these jobs just to earn for their family. Every year hundreds of sewage workers die due to health-related problems. Until 2013, the sewage cleaning was being performed by entering workers into the manhole manually and cleaning them. Seeing the problems which arise due to the sewage cleaning, the Supreme Court of India, in 2013, gave a decision that all such jobs would be done by machines and where ever human intervention is required, proper safety equipment's should be provided to the workers. However, the municipality gives these contract to contractors who hire local people to clean the sewage. They are not given any safety equipment. Many cities have bought safety equipment worth lakhs for the workers. Every single set of equipment is around 4–5 lakh rupees. Consequently, due to poor diplomacy and political interference, the sewage safety equipment distribution programme is not being effectively implemented.