Kathmandu- Road broomers are being used to clean dusty roads in the Kathmandu Valley.

The Ministry of Water Supply and Sanitation had earlier instructed the authorities concerned to clean the Valley’s roads with the use of machines after the laying of water pipes carried out under the Melamchi Water Supply Project.

There were complaints from the public against increasing dust pollution in the Valley as roads had been left without proper cleaning after the installation of underground pipes which has directed the authorities to use the machines to address the public concerns. The Kathmandu Metropolitan City brought its five new Italian broomer machines Dulevo-6000 into operation, it announced five different routes where the machines would be deployed to clean the city roads. But the machines have reached only a few VVIP road sections so far, neglecting other areas of the Valley.   

“We saw pictures and videos of the broomer machines on social media and read about the metropolis’s announcement for their operation. It was as though the officials were launching a rocket to the moon,” said Laxmi Narayan Khadgi, 45, who runs Laxmi Bakery in Mitranagar, Chabahil. “But we have yet to see the machines cleaning the roads in our area.”

“We had high hopes that the new broomer machines will give us some respite from the dust,” said Pradeep Upadhyay, 33, a sweets shop owner at Chabahil chowk. “The roads here are so dusty that we have to sprinkle water on them every 15 minutes. I guess these broomer machines are brought for the VVIP areas only.”

The metropolis had announced to bring 10 broomer machines earlier in April 2017 to make Kathmandu a ‘mask-free city’, but it failed to do so at the time. Two years later, the metropolis has brought five broomer machines at a cost of Rs 108 million. 

Various plans are being made but when it comes under implementation only 50% get implemented, this might be because of political instability and other possible reasons in Nepal. Hope it be tackled very soon and country people and environment should no more suffer.

Source: http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2019-04-07/citys-broomer-machines-cleaning-vvip-areas-only.html