If you are a government bus driver, a minor daily routine will now be to sit at the wheel with windows rolled down and gently manoeuvre the bus back and forth as a machine unleashes jets of water all over the vehicle.
The Puducherry Road Transport Corporation (PRTC) on Wednesday launched an automatic bus washing machine that is expected to drastically cut down the time taken to clean buses as well as the amount of water used for the purpose.
Chief Minister N. Rangasamy launched the facility.
The PRTC, which has outsourced its bus cleaning work to a private agency, had so far been using a low-end system with pressurised water sprays and hand-held hoses. What this also meant is that turnaround times for its fleet of 100 buses ranged between half an hour to 40 minutes. “With the new machine, we target bringing down the cleaning time for each bus to five minutes,” said P. Devaraj, PRTC Managing Director.
The new Rs. 4 lakh installation will reduce the level of, rather than completely do away, with manual engagement. The interiors of the buses will continue to be cleaned manually, officials said. However, the automatic water machine uses just about 100 litres of water to give a sparkling clean look to a bus, which is significantly lesser than what was used up during manual cleaning.
