RCC introduces modern machine to clean streets
Rajshahi city Mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton inaugurates a modern street sweeper yesterday. Photo: STAR
Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) introduced machine based system yesterday shaving off the 140-year-old system to clean the city streets with brooms. The city mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton opened the system by running the new Road Sweeping Vehicle at Shaheb Bazar Zero point in the afternoon. RCC Chief Engineer Ashraful Haque said the LGED buying the vehicle at a cost of Tk 1 crore under the ADB funded project of Secondary Towns Integrated Flood Protection (Phase -2) had donated it to RCC following a government directive. It was learnt that machine would sweep garbage from 10 to 15 kilometres of the main city streets per hour and it was capable of storing two tonnes of garbage inside it using 1700 litres of water. The machine would cost the corporation Tk 25 for cleaning one kilometre of the roads, said Haque hoping the expenditure would be much lower than manual cleaning. RCC conservancy officer (monitoring) Mostaque Hossain informed that RCC was currently spending Tk 40 lakh per month for paying 1,159 labourers for sweeping the city streets. He said the manual sweepers would not be deducted right now as the machine would be ineffective at different thoroughfares with smaller width. Liton said Rajshahi entered the modern era through introducing the mechanised cleaning system. He said the then British rulers 140 years ago had hired workers of Hela caste from India for cleaning the city that was named as Rampur Boalia. Many of the caste were still doing the same job in generations. Their days were not ending and we would rehabilitate them if the mechanised system would continue. He mentioned that RCC in July 2009 had introduced night time city cleaning system that achieved appreciation in home and abroad.
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