The municipal corporation’s mechanical road sweeping project has moved closer to implementation. The project aims to make the city’s internal and major roads dust-free. The financial bid for the tender covering internal roads opened recently, with a private firm qualifying in the process. According to information, the technical evaluation of bids for the mechanised cleaning of the city’s main roads is underway, and financial bids are expected to be opened shortly. At present, most roads under the project are being cleaned on alternate days through temporary arrangements.
The corporation has earmarked a budget of Rs 25.57 crore for the comprehensive mechanised sweeping and road maintenance project.
According to officials, tender conditions have been made stricter to ensure effective sanitation standards across the city. Areas inaccessible to mechanised sweepers, including narrow lanes and corners, will be cleaned manually by workers deployed by the contractor concerned.
The selected agency will also be responsible for washing roads and footpaths, cleaning road gullies (drainage inlets installed to collect surface rainwater and prevent flooding) and chambers, and cutting grass growing along road edges. The contractor will have to ensure that roads remain clean and garbage-free throughout the day. Besides routine sweeping, the agency will also be tasked with the removal of dust, horticulture waste, plastic waste, debris, and bricks from roads, while ensuring that stormwater drains remain free of garbage and blockages. To improve transparency and monitoring, all vehicles and machines deployed under the project will be equipped with GPS systems linked directly to the city’s Integrated Command and Control Centre, enabling officials to monitor operations in real time.
The first tender floated in this regard, in December last year, had failed to attract bidders till January 30, forcing the civic body to reissue the tender with revised conditions.
Under the interim arrangement, the corporation deployed four mechanised sweeping machines from January 1, which are presently carrying out cleaning operations on alternate days.
Officials said daily mechanised cleaning of roads would begin once the tender process was finalised.
