Bhubaneswar: The Smart City of Bhubaneswar Tuesday got smarter after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik flagged off sweeping machines for cleaner city roads and modular toilets that protect against diseases.
The specially designed vehicles will combat air pollution by removing litter, dust and other garbage from the roads. Additionally, these will rid the roads of particulate matter– PM 2.5 and PM10 — which are otherwise missed in manual sweeping.
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) through two agencies will be implementing the mechanical sweeping on an identified network across the city from Tuesday. The two agencies will do a pre-operational free trial run from October 2 to October 9. Once the agencies complete the free trial run, they will start their operations.
Talking about the benefit of the system, BMC Commissioner Krishan Kumar said, “Mechanical sweeping will provide the citizens better air quality across the city along the 80 km corridor. The machines have the potential to collect particulate matter PM 2.5 and PM 10 present in the dust.’’
SMART TOILETS
The Chief Minister, meanwhile, during the same event also inaugurated 60 pre-fabricated stainless steel modular smart toilets aimed at improving hygiene in the city. According to the civic authorities, these fully automatic toilets have the smart capability of cleaning themselves and thus would provide better hygiene resulting in zero or no contamination from urinary tract infections.
BMC Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena said, “These smart stainless steel pre-fabricated toilets launched today are likely to be the change-makers in the city and especially during the World Cup hockey they would help the people in a great way.’’
The dual facilities launching event was attended by the CM, Housing and Urban Development Minister Niranjan Pujari, Bhubaneswar MLA (North) Priyadarshi Mishra, Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena, BMC Commissioner Krishan Kumar, BMC Additional Commissioner Subham Saxena, City Engineer Debasundar Mohapatra, senior officials of BMC, several corporators and representatives of United Air Express were present.
BOX: BENEFITS OF MECHANICAL SWEEPING:
- Due to its virtue of reducing the PM2.5 & PM10 contents from air it has an extra edge in combating air pollution.
- Aims at reducing the health hazards of the sweeping workers as it does not have direct human exposure.
- Roads likely to last longer by making them cleaner and litter-free.
- BMC claims the overall sweeping cost would be lower than manual sweeping.