Mechanised road-sweeping machines, which also fight dust and air pollution, will debut in the state capital next month.

Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has inked an agreement with Delhi-based Lions Services Limited for starting the operation in important four-lane roads of the city as well as double-lane ones in the wards.

Lions Services’ Geographic Information System (GIS)-based mechanised sweeping project in Mohali near Chandigarh has been established as an industry best practice by the Union urban development ministry.

“As per the agreement signed with Lions Services Limited they will be using three mechanised sweeping machines from February 10,” said RMC commissioner Manoj Kumar. “The machines, each costing over Rs 1.5 crore and imported from Germany, have landed in the Calcutta port and would be reaching us soon.

“While the two big mechanised sweeping machines having capacity of 5 tonnes each will be used for four-lane roads, the smaller machine having capacity of 3 tonnes will be used for double-lane roads in different wards,” he added.

The mechanised road sweeping will see specialised equipment mounted on trucks to remove litter, loose gravel, soil, vehicle debris, animal excreta and pollutants from the road surface.

“There are two primary benefits,” said an official in the engineering cell of the RMC. “The more obvious benefits are the collection and removal of litter, leaves and other visible debris that collect in the gutter and block the bell mouths and other storm-water facilities causing localised flooding during rains. An equally important but less visible benefit is the removal of fine particulate matter, metal particles and other hazardous waste products.”

The machines will, of course, also power-scrub and clean the road surface.

“The power scrubbing will remove grime, grease and oil from surfaces quickly without damaging the road surface, something which was not possible in manual mopping,” the RMC engineering cell official said.

Essel Infra had purchased one such road sweeping machine way back in 2007-08 but the vehicle developed technical snags.

“We will be using the machines on Main Road, Ratu Road, stretch between Booty Mor and Kantatoli Chowk, etc,” commissioner Kumar said. “It can cover 120 km of a single lane. We have conducted a survey of four-lane roads under our area and it is around 70-80 km of four-lane roads. We can easily cover all the four-lane roads in a week. The service provider has assured that once cleaned it would take more than three-four days for (needing) another cleaning.”

For monitoring the operation of the machines the service provider will be installing GPS and CCTV cameras on all the trucks.

“We will be conducting random monitoring of the road-sweeping machines through GPS to see if the designated roads are being covered or not. We will also be seeing through CCTV if the cleaning is done in a proper manner or not,” Kumar said.

Residents welcomed the move.

“Mechanised sweeping is in practice in all big cities of the country and being the state capital it should have had such machines long back,” said Manoj Bhagat, a resident of Circular Road and an employee at the state drinking water and sanitation department.

“However, better late than never as this would put an end to manual sweeping and the dust flying in air during sweeping.”