By spending Rs 3.73 lakh daily on cleanliness, the Punjab Government intended to make Mohali ‘the cleanest town’ of the country.
This was said by Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal after inaugurating the first-of-its-kind mechanised cleanliness system at Municipal Bhawan, Sector 68, today.
Under the project, a manual and mechanised sweeping operation will be carried out in the night from 10 pm to 6 am.
For mechanised sweeping, two self-propelled road sweeping machines will be used. A private company has been roped in for the project, which will charge Rs 13.51 cr per annum. “ Mohali will become the cleanest town of the country by the end of the month”, said Sukhbir Badal.
Municipal Commissioner Uma Shankar Gupta said a control room had been set up at the MC office from where the entire operation would be supervised. “A mobile application has also been designed to supervise the work and maintain the digital record of the operation,” said Gupta.
Clarifying that there will be no adverse impact on safai sewaks, Badal said there would be a proper distribution of areas. He said all roads would be divided into beats so that complete mechanised and manual cleaning could be ensured. “Machines will clean 55 kilometers of roads in the night while safai sewaks will get 87 kilometer of A category roads and 307 kilometers of B and C category roads,” said Badal.
He said the MC staff would be provided rolling dustbins and other necessary items.
Safai sewaks protest
Suspecting the loss of jobs, safai sewaks on Thursday held a protest in Mohali. The protesters, who wanted to stage a protest in front of the Deputy Chief Minister, were stopped by the Mohali Police from reaching MC Bhawan, Sector 68. Later, Sukhbir Badal said no safai sewak would be sacked.