The Public Works Department (PWD) on Tuesday was directed by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia to resurrect, on an “emergency basis”, its plans to vacuum clean arterial roads.
A senior government official privy to the proceedings of a brainstorming session aimed at combating air pollution — presided over by Mr. Sisodia at his Delhi Secretariat office — said that private contractors providing the service on a relatively more expensive per-kilometre basis may be hired so long as a visible reduction in the level of dust pollution was achieved.
“Officials associated with the project were told that while fresh tendering for the department’s own machines goes on, time is of the essence and mechanised vacuum cleaning needs to be taken up at the earliest and executed on priority basis,” the official said.
New tender
Introduced in April this year on a trial basis, the initiative had gradually tapered off due to technical reasons ranging from financial infeasibility to unpredictable delays related to the availability of such machines hired from private vendors.
Given the meagre number of machines at the PWD’s disposal, significant chunks of the Ring Road, the Outer Ring Road, National Highway-8, Rao Tula Ram Road, Africa Avenue and Aurobindo Marg were cleaned on alternate days.
Late last month, PWD Minister Satyendar Jain had announced that the Delhi government was going to float a fresh tender for the city-wide mechanised cleaning of arterial roads as no takers had stepped up to provide their services to the PWD on at least two occasions.
Another senior government official said that the new tender will call for separate service providers for mechanised sweeping and the beautification of roads – both of which were combined and formed the core of the service expected in the first two tenders.
