Push for govt’s road vacuuming project

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government all set to give another push to revive its road vacuum cleaning project, six months after its grand launch and gradual tapering off.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government all set to give another push to revive its road vacuum cleaning project, six months after its grand launch and gradual tapering off.

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The proposal to mechanically sweep Delhi’s dusty roads was announced last December as part of a clutch of decisions by the ruling AAP to combat levels of air pollution in the city.

In fact, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had inaugurated a green drive and vacuum cleaning on April 1 this year and had tweeted that all PWD roads in the city will mechanically be sweeped in “two months”.

“But the project never took off as envisaged as there were few takers for the government tender inviting private players. The lack of interest was because greening and beautification of roads were clubbed in as prerequisites along with vacuum cleaning ,” government sources said.

There were just a handful of companies that had equal expertise in sweeping as well as greening and beautification. Hence, the response to the project was tepid, they said.

Another issue that cropped up was related to the dumping of the collected dust. Sources said that the MCDs, that run the landfill sites in the national capital, refused to absorb the dust, a claim that the civic bodies vehemently denied.

Now, a fresh tender is being drafted, where the sweeping and beautification components have been separated.

It is learnt that the government is open to domestic as well as international bidders and was brainstorming over whether they should hire the vacuuming machines or purchase them.

Around 1,280 km of the city’s total road length comes under the local Public Works Department as it is responsible only for roads which are more than 60-ft wide. The rest comes under the purview of the civic bodies.