The Public Works Department (PWD) intends to double its existing capacity of mechanised vacuum cleaning of arterial stretches in the Capital by the end of this calendar year, sources said.
Currently, operating with a strength of just six machines, which perform scheduled mechanised vacuum cleaning across the 1,260-odd kilometres of road length under its jurisdiction in Delhi, the PWD, according to a senior government official, is in the process of finalising a global tender to procure the services of six more.
Service contract
The agency is understood to have abandoned the idea of procuring its own machines for the monumental task and has decided to settle for what the official described as “long-term service contract” instead.
“We are in the process of finalising a global tender for the service and should be able to float it by September, following which vendors are expected to be roped in for the task before December this year,” said the official.
Per-km cost
“The idea of procuring machines owned by the PWD was debated only to lead to the emergence of a concern about the longevity of such equipment given the significant amount of road length which needs to be periodically maintained,” the official said, adding that the PWD was more than likely to call for vendors interested in providing their services and equipment.
Currently, the mechanised vacuum cleaning machines taken from service providers in Punjab are engaged in maintaining roads in Delhi on a per-kilometre basis. The same model would be offered to the new service providers too.
Anti-air pollution drive
The initiative, which is at the core of the Delhi government’s anti-air pollution drive, was initially executed by the PWD with just four foreign-manufactured machines obtained from private contractors. Cleaning was done on just a handful of arterial stretches beginning April 1 last year.
The project proved expensive when private Delhi-based vendors were roped in and the PWD began working on a proposal to import the machines.
High expenditure
Paid for on a per-kilometre basis, the expenditure on the initiative proved “non-feasible” which, as per a senior government official, formed the basis of the PWD’s decision to float a proposal to procure them on its own. However, the agency was not successful in bringing service providers to the government’s doorstep, following which tenders were floated again and again with similar lack of success.
