HYDERABAD, Nov 26: Mechanical street sweepers have been acquired to meet the challenge of rising population, limited manpower and poor sanitation services, said District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil.

“Each sweeper has a capacity to clean two kilometres of road in an hour and the sanitation staff will now be at hand to sweep lanes, streets and markets,” he said during the demonstration of mechanised sweepers at the District Government Secretariat, on Monday.

He said the district government had spent billions of rupees on various development projects and laid a network of modern asphalt roads in the city but due to shortage of staff, roads could not be cleaned properly.

He said the district government procured mechanical street sweepers which had proved successful in developed countries. He said sweeping of roads which used to take eight hours and 40 sweepers will now take couple of hours to clean with the mechanical ones.

“The machines are fitted with brushes of various sizes and sprinklers and three have been procured on experimental basis,” he said adding “more will be made available if proved successful.”

He said the district government had already provided 41 garbage lifting trucks, three cesspool tanks and machines which had been imported from America for cleaning sewerage lines and winch machines for big sewers.

“The mechanised division has also been established for monitoring purpose while the district government plans to purchase loaders, dumpers, excavators and other modern machinery to keep Hyderabad clean and tidy,” he added.

Nazim City Taluka Javed Jabbar, Nazim Latifabad Taluka Sabir Hussain Kaimkhani, Nazims of various Union Councils, Project Director Hyderabad Development Package (HDP), Syed Sarfaraz Ali Shah, Managing Director WASA Abdul Malik Khatri, Manager Jaffer Brothers (Pvt) Limited, Syed Asad Ali and officials of district government were present on the occasion.