April 26: People stop to watch as it makes its bulky way down the streets, sweeping them and contributing to making Bidar a much cleaner place to live in. The town , which is more poor than prosperous, with a backward tag attached to it, has, however, gone hi-tech in keeping its environment clean.
Its roads are not swept by workers using brooms, but by a machine mounted on a hydraulically operated truck that cost the Bidar City Municipal Council (CMC) Rs 85 lakh to procure.

The machine, which is found only in much bigger cities like Bengaluru and Mysore, draws admiring looks from the people of Bidar, not accustomed to seeing such technology at work in their midst.

“This is the first time in the state that a city municipal council has procured such a machine” says Bidar deputy commissioner Harsh Gupta, explaining that money received by the town under the Backward Region Grant Fund set aside for the development of local bodies, was used to buy it.

The machine can clean roads over a stretch of up to 60 km in a day and can be used even in traffic without difficulty, says CMC environmental engineer Abhay Kumar.

“As the roads in Bidar are being widened under a municipal programme it is essential to also keep them clean. So we decided to buy the automatic sweeper to help us,” he adds.

It is obviously a good investment, as the machine, which needs just a driver and two others to operate it , can clean all the roads of the town in just one day.

It can also suck the sludge deposited on the roadsides and recycle it.

“The water removed from the sludge can be reused as well,” says Mr Kumar.

Soon the sweeping machine will also be used clean other towns of the district like Basavakalyan and Humnabad, say the officers.