Ghaziabad civic body set to focus on mechanised road sweeping

The 10 new suction-based litter-picker machines will be deployed in 10 major markets such as Kavi Nagar, Vasundhara, Raj Nagar district centre, Mohan Nagar and Turab Nagar, among others. The officials said that the machines are electric and can run for at least six hours on a single charge

The Ghaziabad municipal corporation has procured 10 litter-picking machines and plans to take the help of mechanical sweeping machines to clean major roads across the city.

The reliance on manual sweeping activities will reduce considerably in Ghaziabad (SAKIB ALI/ HT)

Civic officials said that the entire road sweeping process has been streamlined in order to maintain neat and clean surroundings with greater efficiency.

The 10 new suction-based litter-picker machines will be deployed in 10 major markets such as Kavi Nagar, Vasundhara, Raj Nagar district centre, Mohan Nagar and Turab Nagar, among others. The officials said that the machines are electric and can run for at least six hours on a single charge.

“We will now deploy these machines in 10 major markets as regular sweeping is not sufficient. There is a lot of litter that gets generated during the day and some of it also blocks drains. We will deploy each of the 10 machines in two shifts of six hours each. Further, we have also decided that 10 of our mechanical road-sweeping machines will now be dedicated for cleaning major roads,” said municipal commissioner MS Tanwar.

“The 10 machines will be tasked to take up sweeping work of 15 major roads across the city”, Tanwar added.

“These initiatives will help to create hygienic surroundings in public places and also help us in the ongoing ‘Swachh Survekshan’. We are confident that Ghaziabad will fare better in this year’s survey. We have also cut down the rates for night sweeping in 30 markets. Earlier, we paid ₹1.75 lakh per running kilometre annually and now we have been able to reduce the rates to ₹79,000 per running kilometre. So, we will now improve the coverage of night sweeping as well,” Tanwar added.

During last year’s Swachh Survekshan, Ghaziabad ended up in the 18th position in the category of cities having a population between 1 to 4 million. During the 2020 Survekshan, the city secured the 19th position while in 2019 it secured the 13th rank.

Health officer Mithilesh Kumar said that the initiatives have been taken up in order to improve conditions in high footfall markets and public places, while focussing on abating polluted surroundings.

“The mechanical road sweepers will work from 11pm to 6am in order to avoid inconvenience to the public. Road-washing will also be taken up on major streets every alternate day and we will be using treated water from sewage treatment plants. Night sweeping in markets will also be mechanised now,” Kumar said.

Kumar further said that with the new initiatives in place, the reliance on manual sweeping activities will reduce considerably.

“With these initiatives, we expect that mechanised cleaning will account for about 40% of overall sweeping coverage,” Kumar added.