The Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) is speeding ahead with its road clean-up work in time for Chhath starting with Nahay Khay on Sunday.

Work started 10 days ago and the civic body is using six jetting machines to clean areas in and around Bailey Road, near Hardinge Park, Ashok Rajpath, Bypass, all major flyovers among others.

Deputy municipal commissioner Vishal Anand said the six jetting machines cost around Rs 25 lakh.

“The plan is to clean all major roads under PMC’s various circles with the high-end machines. The small lanes are being cleaned with the old machines and manually. The Income tax roundabout, McDowell roundabout, JP roundabout, Kargil Chowk, Dinkar roundabout and other places were cleaned on Friday with the jetting machines,” said a senior PMC official, adding that instructions had been issued to the civic body’s executive officers to clean the roads at night, preferably after 10pm, to make it ready for the festival, Bihar’s biggest.

New machines

Deputy municipal commissioner Vishal said PMC will also purchase road sweeping machines by the second week of December.

De-silting and other sanitation machines will also be purchased, PMC sources said.

A PMC official said on the condition of anonymity: “The empowered standing committee has approved purchase of six road sweeping machines. The de-silting machine will help us smoothly clean manholes and drains throughout the year. The detailed project report for the purchase of sanitation instrument will be sent to the urban development and housing department soon.”

The official added that the corporation has decided to purchase sanitation equipment from the Centre’s government e-marketplace (GeM) portal. “This will ensure transparency and efficiency in the instrument purchase. The corporation will be able to save time because the machines can be bought at a lower price and faster,” he said.