Sweeping machines launched by chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday. Picture by Badrika Nath Das.

Cuttack, May 16: Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik today inaugurated the mechanised sweeping of city roads giving Cuttack the distinction of becoming the first city in the state to adopt this process.

At the inauguration programme at Vikash Bhavan in Khannagar, the chief minister said it was a laudable step taken by the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) that would benefit the people in the long run, he said.

The machines would operate on 48 major roads covering around 500km. The three mechanised sweepers with water sprinklers on the brushes, costing Rs 70 lakh each, have four-inch suction lines. Each of the sweepers have a 5.5-tonne waste-handling capacity, can sweep 7-8km of road in less than eight hours and provide more than 60 times the output of manual sweepers.

Mayor Saumendra Ghosh said mechanical sweeping has been adopted under an integrated municipal solid waste management project. “The Rs 60-crore project is the first of its kind to be implemented by a civic body in the state,” the mayor said.

The chief minister also inaugurated a mechanised transfer station with a weigh bridge for garbage at Sati Chaura.

Municipal commissioner R.N. Nanda said the transfer station, especially the weigh bridge, was a key component of the integrated municipal solid waste management project, as the private operator implementing the project under a five-year contract for sweeping, collection, transportation and disposal of municipal solid waste would be paid on tonnage basis.

“All garbage collected will be routed through the transfer station before being transported to the dumping yard at Chakradharpur on the outskirts of the city. Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited (Reel) of Hyderabad had entered into an agreement with CMC to charge Rs 1,764 per metric tonne of garbage,” the municipal commissioner said.

Reel will adopt manual sweeping in the narrow roads, lanes and by-lanes where the road sweepers for mechanical sweeping are not accessible. It will ensure door-to-door collection of garbage in 36 of the 54 wards by using community bins and road side bins.

“The number and size of such bins have been allotted on the basis of quantities of waste generated and the population density of an area”, said Srikant Choudhury, project head of REEL. “Over 1,000 such bins will be used,” he said.

The private operator, as part of the five-year contract, would clean all drains, cut bushes, clear weeds and carry out other activities pertaining to sanitary and conservancy. It would maintain the mechanised transfer station.