Four litter-picker machines to keep Chennai roads clean

CHENNAI: The civic body plans to add more machines to help clean city roads. Four litter-picker machines will be purchased, which will suck up plastic cups, plates and other paper waste.
The machine will be initially used on arterial roads and based on its performance more will be purchased.
“A German company named Glutton introduced the civic body to the machine and has undertaken a trial-run in Nungambakkam.But each machine costs Rs 20 lakh. So we wanted some Indian companies to supply them to us at a cheaper rate. The tenders will be opened on Monday,” said Prabhakar, executive engineer of the mechanical department.
He added that these machines will initially be used in crowded areas such as bus stands, beaches and parks. “It is a bigger version of a vacuum cleaner,” said Prabhakar.
Several private contractors across the country — including in cities like Pune — are using these machines. “Since the technology is yet to be proved, we did not want to purchase many units now. The numbers will be increased as we train workers,” said an official.
Meanwhile, the civic body already has 16 mechanical road sweepers that can suck dust off the city roads, robotic excavators and five beach-cleaning machines. Even dust as small as 60 microns can be removed from the roads by the mechanical sweepers.
The Greater Chennai Corporation has recently purchased six more mechanical sweepers at Rs 2.70cr in August, last year under Swachh Bharat mission project.
They have been already commissioned in the city and sweep the roads collecting approximately four cubic metres of dust at a time.
Rajan T, a sanitary worker, said that they would be happy if they were given gloves, masks and such machines.
“People will take us more seriously and won't dump waste right in front of us when we sweep roads. It will save time too,” said the worker.