BBMP needs Rs 4 cr to run 9 sweeping machines for 5 yrs

The cost of maintaining and operating the nine sweeping machines that Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike procured on Monday, will be almost three times the cost of the machines.
The machines comprising eight big ones (truck mounted) and a small one (self-propelled) were flagged off by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday in the presence of Mayor G Padmavathi and Palike commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad.

Siddaramaiah told reporters the machines will help keep the city clean. Cameras and geo-positioning systems fitted on these vehicles enable tracking of their movement and gauge their performance.

“Camera and GPS will bring in transparency in the functioning of these vehicles. Payments will be made based on their movement and performance,” said the chief minister.

These machines have been purchased from TPS Infrastructure Ltd. Each truck-mounted machine costs Rs 1.08 crore while the self-propelled machine costs Rs 47 lakh. The firm will maintain and operate these machines for five years. The maintenance and operation cost of each truck-mounted machine is Rs 2.48 crore and that of the self-propelled machine is Rs 1.51 crore, over five years.

Palike officials say there is nothing unusual in the maintenance cost of these vehicles. “The maintenance and operation cost includes drivers’ salaries, fuel, replacing equipment like mechanical brushes and vacuum machines. If one considers the salaries paid to Pourakarmikas or hiring these machines, it works out much cheaper,” said BBMP joint commissioner (solid waste management) Sarfaraz Khan.
He explained that the cost of operating each truck-mounted machine per month is Rs 5.95 lakh, whereas to perform the same task, Palike spends Rs 17 lakh on Pourakarmikas and Rs 12 lakh for hiring mechanical sweeping machines. He said each truck-mounted machine will sweep 50 km of roads a day while the small one can sweep 30 km a day. This way, around 300 km of roads can be cleaned everyday with these machines.