Mumbai: After facing flak for its inefficient nullah-cleaning, the BMC has decided to take the tech way to ensure that taxpayer money does not go down the drain. For the past one week, the BMC has pressed into service a diminutive cleaner, who is just 3.5 feet tall but comes at a steep price — Rs 6 crore — and all the way from America, to clean arched drains in the city.
Every monsoon, the lifeline of Mumbai — the local trains are left in the lurch as culverts overflow and commuters find themselves stranded. The robot will be especially useful in the implementation of pre-monsoon readiness measures, like desilting nullahs, cleaning out drains and manholes. It can clean culverts beneath railway tracks and under roads, going where no man can go.
It can turn a whole 360 degrees, which comes in handy while cleaning hard-to-reach spots, solving the problem of the storm water department, which finds it is very challenging to reach low areas and narrow spaces. It has the capacity to take out 700 kilograms of silt or muck in one go. The machine is 120 inches wide, powered by a 36 horse power engine and is operated by remote control
