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AHMEDABAD: In the next three months, a small army of workers in uniforms will be spending the nights cleaning Ahmedabad's streets. But before you witness this 'Surat phenomenon', the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is trying to solve the problem of collecting garbage from the bins.
For a long time, the solid waste management (SWM) department has been facing problems in maintaining a proper fleet of dumper trucks for collection of garbage. Euro-4 (pollution emission grade) dumper trucks, which cause minimal pollution, are a must for mega cities. But AMC is handicapped as most of its dumper trucks comply with Euro-3 norms.
"We will now buy these Euro- 3 dumper trucks from smaller towns and register them in satellite regional transport offices to curb this problem," said a senior official of the civic body.
"This way, officially, we will not buy these trucks from within the city. We have Rs 114 crore available under JNNURM project to strengthen our solid waste management system," he added.
The average waste collection in the city according to SWM officials has gone up to 3,000 tonnes from 900 tonnes in the last five years.
"We are focusing on cleaning up and increasing our surveillance in commercial and hawking points in the city. People who frequent these places can notice some difference in the next two months. Cleanliness around garbage bins and ensuring that the bins get cleared at least once a day is our priority right now. The system would take at least three months before it's streamlined. Only after that we would start the night scraping and brushing cleaning drives like it is done in Surat," says newly appointed municipal commissioner of Ahmedabad Guruprasad Mohapatra.