Lalitpur Metropolitan City unveiled two Italian M-60 macro broomer machines and two water tankers on Friday with a motto of making the city ‘green and mud- and dust-free’.

These are the first broomer machines the metropolitan city is going to operate in Lalitpur.

Chiri Babu Maharjan, mayor of the metropolitan city, inaugurated the machines amid a function in the district that saw the presence of Deputy Mayor Gita Satyal, Chief Executive Officer, Prem Prasad Bhattarai, Environment Division Chief Pradeep Amatya, and other officials.

“This is a step ahead to keep our metropolitan city trash free,” said Maharjan, after inaugurating the four machines. “We will be mobilising the water tankers solely to flourish greenery in the city.”

The water tankers were bought from the money allocated to the Mayor for the purchase of a vehicle. “The second municipal assembly meeting last year had allocated Rs 10 million for a vehicle, but I chose to ride in the old vehicles,” said Maharjan, who drives in Toyota Rav-4. The vehicle was used by the former mayor of the city Buddhi Raj Bajracharya two decades ago (till 1998). “I was elected to serve people, and that is why I decided to spend some part of the money to buy water tankers.”

The city has also announced it will take the responsibility of caring for the plants that were planted to mark the National Plantation Day, on June 30, in the presence of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. A total of 2,681 saplings of nine different species were planted in the newly constructed 10.5km Kalanki -Koteshwor road section, and over 90 percent plants comes under the territory of the city.

As for the broomers, the metropolitan city has planned tentative routes for the machines in major road sections, such as from Kupondole to Satdobato, Lagankhel to Krishna Mandir, Pulchowk to Gwarko. The route also includes a 7.9 km stretch on the eight-lane ring road from Balkumari Bridge to Balkhu Bridge. The machines will also be going up to Bungamati, Dhapakhel and Godawari.

“We are looking at the feasibility of deploying these machines to other routes as well,” said Pradeep Amatya, chief of the environment division of the city. 

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