Municipal Corporation of Delhi to clean arterial road grid

The proposal to mechanically clean and repair the Delhi’s 1,400-km arterial road network, which caters to 70% of the city’s traffic volume, will now be undertaken by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) by significantly increasing the existing resources of the civic body, officials aware of the matter said. The proposal for the Delhi government to mechanically clean these arterial roads — with a width of 60ft or more — was initially announced by chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in January. Thereafter, then finance minister Kailash Gehlot, in his Budget speech delivered in March, announced that the project will be carried out by the Public Works Department (PWD).

However, the task will now be executed by the MCD instead. The civic body currently has a fleet of 52 mechanical road sweepers for Delhi’s arterial roads, while the city’s inner colony road network (5-60ft) is cleaned daily by 50,000 sanitation workers.

MCD has already started consultations with private companies to ramp up services across the 1,400-km road network, with a stakeholders meeting held at the Civic Centre on June 30, officials said.

The first series of user demonstrations will be carried out within next fortnight, and a senior municipal official aware of the development said that directions have been issued to present a fresh proposal to the house of councillors. “We have started consultations, and a meeting was held with eight private companies offering mechanised cleaning solutions on June 30 at MCD headquarter where representatives from CM office along with additional commissioners were present. Both the government and MCD top brass are in the loop,” the official said.