BMC gets two more silt-removing machines

The BMC last month purchased two more automatic Rs 3-crore silt-removing machines to be used in the suburbs ahead of this monsoon.

The BMC already has two such machines, which help it to clean minor drains located deep beneath the surface of the road. These machines were first used in the island city in the run up to the previous monsoon.

"Sometimes, it is very difficult to manually clean drains located 15 feet deep. The two newly-bought machines will be deployed in eastern and western suburbs," a senior civic official said.

The machine is a tanker of sort with pipes attached to it, and have a high-capacity suction pump. The pipes are lengthy enough to reach deep inside drains and suck water and silt out. The waste thus sucked in is stored in the tanker, which can hold 8-10 cubic metres of silt. The tanker has two compartments in which the sucked content is segregated into silt and water.

"The machine can segregate silt and waste water. It can also recycle the water, which can be used again to clean dry drains. The machine can't operate in dry drains. So, recycled water is pumped into the dry drain and mud sucked out," the official added.