Patna: The civic body thinks mechanisation is the way forward, but an expert said ensuring that skilled workers are hired for handling the machines will ensure efficacy of sanitation work.

The civic body often uses high-end equipment for sanitation-related work but the labourers use the equipment in a limited manner as they don't know how to handle the nachines, said Abdur Rahman Quaff, who teaches environmental engineering at NIT Patna.

"JCBs (earth movers) and other machines have been in use for trash collection from various sites but we have found trash being left even when it was collected from the site using any equipment. This is because no training has been given to the workers on how to handle the machine," he said. "The labourers should also be made aware how much carrying out their work properly is linked to the environment. Awareness has to be created."

Quaff also suggested that the civic body buy the latest technology available.

"For example, for de-silting, developed foreign countries machines through which silt scoped out of the drain can be directly kept into the vacuum container on the vehicle on which the machine is placed. The vehicle transports the silt onto the dumping site. Here, the de-silting machines are used through which silt can be scooped out but it has to be kept on the roadside for two to three days until it is dry."

The professor suggested that sanitation workers should also be trained on transporting the collected garbage to the landfill site.

"An MTech student of NIT Patna last year conducted survey through which it was revealed that collected garbage was dumped at various points in the state capital as the labourers and agencies wanted to save their transportation cost. They might be claiming to corporation that they are dumping garbage on the authorized dumping site but they were not doing that actually because of saving money. So there should be proper monitoring of the work," said Quaff.

Waterlogging problems can be addressed by ensuring a proper drainage system, he said. "Besides, the short diameter of the hume pipe also causes choking of the drain."