Sweepers run without brooms

■ 60 per cent of bills on sweeping machines fake

Just a day after Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy ordered officials to use mechanised sweepers to their full potential, many machines were deployed without brooms.

A comprehensive survey conducted by the civic body during April revealed that the sweeping machines, which were supposed to sweep 60 km per day, were not even sweeping 30 km. Taking strong objection to this, civic authorities issued showcause notices to assistant medical officers of health and sought a written explanation.

Not even a month has passed since and the sweeping machines are trundling on city roads with good speed, only to reach their daily targets but not to serve the actual purpose. They are either sweeping with a single broom or no broom at all.

When this newspaper conducted a verification on the ground on Saturday, it found that the machines were not actually sweeping the roads. The verification was conducted in two stretches including Dilsukhnagar-LB Nagar and Uppal-Hubsiguda. Surprisingly, the machine with registration number TS 12 EF 4003, which was sweeping from Dilsukhnagar towards LB Nagar, did not have brooms.

When questioned, the driver of the sweeping machine refused to answer and got into a confrontation. Interestingly, the sweeping machines have been using both white and yellow number plates for the same vehicle — as per norms, white plates are for privately-owned vehicles and yellow plate are for taxis.

Highly-placed sources in the GHMC said that the machines were sweeping only the lane adjacent to the road divider but not all lanes. Sources said that most of the sweeping machines which were supposed to work for 10 hours were working only for three.

“More than 60% bills are fake. Due to the negligence of the GHMC, private agencies and ground-level staff have been swindling crores of rupees” they said.

Reacting to the charges GHMC commissioner Reddy said it was the duty of the vehicle owner to check the condition of brooms installed on the vehicle.