The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has set a target of washing 650 km of roads daily to settle dust particles. However, at present the civic team is able to wash less than 150 km of roads per day in 24 administrative wards.
According to Free Press Journal, earlier washing of only 125 to 150 km of roads could be managed, however, the civic body now wants to do more gradually.
Lack of funds, limited resources, and challenges such as cleaning during non-peak hours have affected the work, said the civic official.
Following instructions from Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, the BMC started washing roads from November 3 to prevent air pollution. Civic authorities announced daily washing of 650 km of its 2,050 km road network. There were also plans to increase their cleaning activity to 1,000 kilometers of roads every day.
The BMC has focused on the busiest roads more than 60 feet wide, which are washed through vehicle-mounted mist sprayer machines and pipes attached to water tankers. About 121 tankers, 17 mud blowers and 5 fog blower machines are used to wash the roads. Non-potable and recycled water, including water from sewage treatment plants, wells and borewells, is used to wash roads.
However, the work has to be carried out during off-peak hours, particularly during the night from 3 am to 6 am.
It has also coming to light that no separate funds have been allocated for this work, hence the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Department of BMC has sent a proposal to sanction INR 2 crore every month for washing the roads.
Civic officials stated that currently, they have focused on lanes and roads near construction sites and areas where dust is seen more. Also, they have to ensure that traffic movement is not affected after roads are washed. So civic officials will increase the km of roads to be washed in phases. By next month they will be able to wash 500 km of roads.
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