Chandigarh MC brings in sweeping changes, arms sanitation workers with new equipment worth ₹3 cr

With a major thrust on sanitation, the municipal corporation has decided to equip its staff with new equipment and machinery worth more than ₹3 crore.

Some of the purchases include basic equipment, but others are expected to add a new technological dimension to the MC sanitation drive.

Equipment and machinery being purchased by the MC include, 50 hand carts, 300 wheel carts, 100 bin-on-wheels, five compactors and one garbage vulnerable points (GVP) suction machine. The MC will also hire 20 tractor trolleys.

The bin-on-wheels helps in collection of sweeping waste from streets and helps to reduce heaps of sweeping waste on roads. These will be introduced as a pilot project, in a single sector first, to replace cycle carts.

The compactor, meanwhile, is used for the collection of waste (dry, wet) as it compresses waste on site and helps to carry around 3-4 metric ton waste in one go.

Among the technological additions is the new garbage vulnerable points (GVP) suction machine, which will be for suction of GVP waste including dry and wet waste, and dry leaves without any manual interference.

Municipal Corporation is now targeting GVPs across the city. The MC has identified 48 such GVP, which are locations where the people dump garbage in open vacant spots including roadside areas. Some of the identified GVPs are located in Sector 13, Mauli Jagran and Industrial Area. Garbage collection is being done twice a day at these GVPs. Ten garbage collection vehicles are currently deputed in service to clean these areas.

Speaking about the new additions, MC commissioner Anindita Mitra said, “We are assessing all gaps in our service delivery. While assessing the same, several infrastructural issues have been flagged. We realise that we need to strengthen the system so that service delivery is improved and at the same time, the employee at the cutting edge is empowered and facilitated to deliver better.”

MC officials said while sanitation workers could clean the city even without such equipment, either the collected garbage is not removed at all or there was a long delay in the process, which defeats the purpose of cleaning. The equipment is expected to give a boost to street sanitation.

Most of these garbage removal functions are currently being outsourced by the MC in the absence of equipment and machinery.

The purchase is being made through the JEM portal, and MC’s medical officer of health (MOH) department will soon start the process.

After last year’s poor performance in Swachh Survekshan, in which the City Beautiful was ranked at 66 out of 4,320 cities, the MC has amped up its efforts to improve sanitation.

In addition to focusing on 100% door-to-door collection and segregation of waste this time, the MC has taken steps to resolve other major issues that contributed to the city slipping in Swachh rankings.

The restoration of the solid waste processing plant in Sector 25 has been taken up, and nearly 60% of work has been completed in the legacy mining at Dadumajra dump site and tenders for the clean-up of 7.5 lakh metric tonne waste has been floated.