The cleanliness of the city is all set to improve from this week as the Madurai Corporation has expanded its fleet of vehicles which are used for removing garbage from various wards.
On Saturday, 16 brand new dumper blazer trucks were added to the existing 34 vehicles procured with the fund allotted under the Integrated Urban Development Mission (IUDM). The Corporation already has 50 garbage collection vehicles.
Mayor V.V.Rajan Chellappa, who flagged off the new vehicles at the Lorry Service Station in Sellur here, said the availability of 100 garbage collection vehicles would make it easy for the Corporation to deploy one vehicle to each ward.
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He said Rs.10 crore was allotted by the State Government for the Madurai Corporation during 2011-12 under the IUDM for procuring vehicles to be deployed to the newly added Corporation areas as well. The fund was used for buying 50 dumper blazer trucks, two compactor vehicles, 400 dumper bins and 125 compactor bins.
“We procured 34 vehicles in two phases in May and this is the third phase of the fleet expansion. Tata Motors has supplied the dumper blazer trucks and the compactor vehicles were procured from TPS Infrastructure. The bins were supplied by Ramarao Body Works,” Mr.Rajan Chellappa noted.
City Engineer (in-charge) A.Mathuram said the addition of vehicles to the fleet would enable the Corporation to dispose of garbage in a swift manner.
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“Since the city had expanded to cover 146 square kilometres, we were in need of additional vehicles. To facilitate effective primary and secondary collection of garbage, we purchased these vehicles,” he pointed out.
Corporation Commissioner R.Nanthagopal and senior officials were present at the function.