BENGALURU: The city roads are set to be cleaner with the local civic body all set to deploy mechanical sweepers. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which had finalised the bidder for 17 mechanical sweepers, had sent the same to the government for approval and the cabinet has approved the project. The government order is expected to be issued soon.
The BBMP has decided to use 34 mechanical sweepers in the city, of which 17 sweeping machines, will be purchased by the Palike on its own grants and 17 more will be provided by the contractors on a monthly payment basis. With this, the BBMP’s total tally of mechanical sweepers will be 41 machines as it already has seven.
According to BBMP, each mechanical sweeper can clean up to 50 km a day along arterial and sub-arterial roads. With 41 mechanical sweepers, the BBMP plans to sweep at least 2,000 km of arterial and sub-arterial roads in the city daily. In several previous council meetings held in BBMP, the council members had accused the BBMP officials of not paying heed to sweeping and cleanliness of the major roads.
However, BBMP Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad had stated that the Palike can no longer rely on the manual sweeping in arterial and sub-arterial roads as the roads are wider than the regular ward roads and thus these roads can be swept only with mechanical sweepers.
However, in a bid to avoid fake billing or excess payments to the work done by the contractors, the BBMP has decided to make payments based on the performance of each machine. However, according to BBMP, each machine will cost Rs 70 lakh and the standard amount of making payments to the contractors a month will be Rs 6.5 lakh, which would vary according to the performance.
The BBMP has also decided to add another 50 mechanical sweepers to the city in the next two years to make it almost 100 mechanical sweepers aiming to clean up to 5,000 km of roads every day. Bengaluru has about 14,440 km of total road length currently. While there are still doubts about the performance of the white-topped roads in the city, the BBMP thinks it would help reduce the time invested in sweeping roads.
An official from BBMP said, “As the white-topped roads do not accumulate dust easily, it will be easier for us to focus on sweeping arterial and sub-arterial roads. Once the white topping is completed, we can prioritise the roads for sweeping.” Sarfaraz Khan, Joint Commissioner, Solid Waste Management, BBMP, told TNIE, “Once the governmen’ts order reaches us, we will issue the work order to the contractors.”