A Bhopal based startup company has developed Smart Restroom Monitoring System (SRMS) which consists of smart supervising equipment for the public washrooms to ensure cleanliness, hygiene and social distancing amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
The system indicates the occupancy in the public toilets/restrooms at the entrance which helps in maintaining social distancing in the times of Covid-19. It helps prevention of the spread of Covid-19 infection as the recent study shows that this virus can also travel through air particles.
The company, Beyondsmart Technologies, has installed the system at two toilets—the first at the Bhopal Smart City office and the second at a public toilet in Bhopal. The firm has won Bhopal Smart City Hackathon 2.0 organised by Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation Limited (BSCDCL) early this year.
CEO of the company, Zeeshan Khan says that the firm has bagged an order of installing 100 SRMS at public toilets in Bhopal from the state government. A single SRMS costs INR 4,000 per restroom, he says.
Khan informs that SRMS is a microcontroller based accurate and highly advanced quick responding system that not only monitors the hygiene parameters but also regulates the cleanliness maintenance operations. The device monitors the cleanliness level in real time through IoT and also keeps a log of the daily tasks at the command centre. “It will play an important role in monitoring the usage of public toilets and maintaining the cleanliness and hygiene,” Khan states.
Scientists claim that the coronavirus, which has infected nearly 41.77 lakh people worldwide (according to John Hopkins University data) as on May 12, 2020, is primarily transmitted through droplets— particles larger than five micrometers when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or speaks.
Those droplets fly through the air before landing on another person, of course. These cloud of tiny viral particles — known as aerosols (these are smaller than droplets) — could linger in the air and infect the next person who walks through the same space. This is known as airborne transmission. The virus can spread that way, living for up to two hours in an airspace where an infected person coughed or sneezed.
According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare website, Madhya Pradesh has registered 3,785 coronavirus cases due to which 221 people have lost their lives while 1747 of them have been cured as on May 12, 2020.