Thormde’s sweepers to be reassigned to other jobs

With the launch of the first road sweeping machine in the country yesterday, people will now see a mechanised sweeper on the roads of Thimphu city.

The thromde procured the sweeping machine at a cost of Nu 6.5 million.

Thimphu thrompon, Kinlay Dorjee, said that the road-sweeping machine will improve cleanliness of the city.

He said that the sweeping machine will be more efficient than people sweeping the roads. The machine is expected to clean at least 10km of road an hour.

The thromde will reassign their road cleaning employees to other thromde works like maintenance of plantations.

The sweeping machine, a Roots RSR 6000, has dual brooms and a suction head. The suction nozzle will be used to vacuum waste from the drains.

The thrompon said that if the city drains are kept clean then there wouldn’t be problems of runoff rainwater on the roads, one of the main causes of potholes.

The thrompon said that people should be aware of the new sweeping machine so that motorists and pedestrians understand and support the thromde’s effort to have a clean city.

The thromde is yet to decide on the cleaning time. The thrompon said that to ensure that the machine doesn’t congest the traffic, the machine will be put to work on busy roads like Norzin and Chang Lam either during the early morning or late at night.

“In other roads like along the expressway, we will clean the road during the daytime,” the thrompon said.

Thromde’s executive secretary, Passang Dorji, said fuel consumption of the sweeping machine is same like that of a normal truck’s.

Two men from the sweeping machine’s company in India will train two local drivers for a week on operating the machine.

The thromde is planning on procuring another similar road sweeping machine.

Dechen Tshomo

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