New Delhi: With an aim to “redefine maintenance standards of urban roads across the city and set a new benchmark of world class maintenance for roads across the country”, the Delhi government has announced a complete “world-class transformation” of Delhi’s roads starting April 1.
During a recent high level review meeting, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “Broken pavements, central verges, manholes, slabs, signage, electric poles, railings, lights and FOBs will be repaired along with maintenance of broken roads and potholes under the project.”
“We will conduct spot-repairs and save money. Agency will be given a 10-year contract for maintenance and upkeep, which will be responsible for repairing any damage within 24 hours. Every road will be resurfaced twice in 10 years and road markings, zebra crossing and footpaths will be repainted every three to six months,” he added.
He further said, “Roads, footpaths, trees and plants will be washed three days a week with mechanical sweeping, deep scrubbing and litter picking every day. Deep scrubbing machines, 150 tanker-sprinklers along with 100 mechanised road sweepers will be hired for PWD roads. 250 anti-smog-gun-cum-sprinklers will be hired to wash the roads of 250 wards of MCD all the trees and plants along the side.”
CM said, “Treated water from sewage treatment plants of Delhi Jal Board will be used to wash the roads. Third party monitoring will be systemised with vehicles fitted with cameras, if any shortcoming is found, the contractor will be fined heavily. There will be a centralised complaint system, where any person can complain if he sees any dirt, mud or potholes on the road. About 4,500 crore rupees will be spent in the first year and then 2,000 crore rupees will be spent every year on the project. In the next few days, all the proposals will be approved by the cabinet and all the work will start from April 1.”
“Every inch of PWD roads will be sparkling clean and world-class quality soon. We will take up holistic repair and long term maintenance of city roads. 10 year maintenance contract will be put in place to maintain all roads and footpaths across the city. Every ward will get an anti-smog-gun,” Chief Minister said.
He added, “We are also introducing deep scrubbing machines to thoroughly clean the roads of all dirt and litter picker machines to pick up all littered material and debris from the roads. We will hire over 100 mechanised road sweepers, over 150 sprinkler tankers and 250 anti-smog-guns-cum-sprinklers. There are 250 wards in Delhi and each ward will get one machine. The 150 sprinkler tankers will be deployed on the large PWD roads. But the 250 smog guns will be handy in cleaning the smaller roads and lanes in the city. These machines too will be engaged for 10 years. 10,000 kiloliters of water will be needed for this purpose. We will be using the water treated at Delhi Jal Board’s STPs for this purpose, instead of discharging it into the Yamuna. Camera-enabled vehicles will go around Delhi throughout the day and record the live situation of the roads and maintenance work.