27 machines for BBMP employees gather dust

Bengaluru: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had purchased 27 sweeping machines, fitted with GPS, to exclusively clean arterial and sub-arterial roads.

However, the truth is something different. In a recent BBMP council meet, the corporators said that many arterial and sub-arterial were not being swept.

Where have all the machines gone? Well, the reality says they gathered dust at the parking lot.

It is also learnt from the solid waste management experts that the mechanical sweepers should run at 10 km/hr but it runs at 40km/hr and are rarely seen on roads. Solid waste management expert, Ram Prasad told The Hans India that while the concept of mechanical sweeping is good there needs to be a proper implementation of the same.

"It is good for night sweeping. This can be implemented by using full proof technology and transparency," he stated.

The supervision of the sweeping machines was assigned to the BBMP's zonal- and ward-level engineers. Seeing the poor quality of work, the palike has now assigned the job of the maintenance of sweeping machines to the Road and Infrastructure Division of the civic agency.

BBMP Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad has directed that all the machines be handed over to the division.

The civic agency is also setting up a centralised command centre to monitor the operations of these machines.

In February, Bengaluru based activist Kavitha Reddy busted the claims of BBMP of cleaning roads.

She took to twitter to show how 16 mechanical sweepers for the past two years remained in the parking lot at HSR layout.