Mechanical road sweepers may be deployed on narrower streets

While roadside dust continues to be one of the biggest contributors to Delhi's air pollution, the city's mechanical road sweeping (MRS) operations have largely remained confined to arterial roads wider than 60 feet.

- Paras Singh

Now, with the Delhi government initiating the process to procure its own MRS fleet for cleaning its 1,400km network of arterial roads, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is preparing to redeploy its existing machines to smaller inner-colony roads, officials said.

At present, 52 MRS units run by the MCD are deployed on roads wider than 60 feet managed by the Public Works Department (PWD). A senior MCD official, who asked not to be identified, said that since PWD did not have its own mechanical sweepers, MCD's machines were being used on its network.

"Now that the Delhi government has begun procuring its own MRS units, our machines can be shifted to smaller municipal roads. These will now operate on roads between 45ft and 60ft in width," the official said.