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Corporation to acquire new amphibian vehicle to desilt waterbodies
The Greater Chennai Corporation will soon acquire a mini-amphibian vehicle and six robotic desilting machines to clean storm water drains, as the existing fleet is insufficient to deal with the water hyacinth and garbage choking up the city’s waterways.
Chennai
Ahead of the monsoons, the Corporation is removing the water hyacinth and floating mass of garbage from the city’s major canals maintained by the civic body, to improve the holding capacity of these structures and facilitate the easy flow of rainwater. However, the Corporation’s current fleet of three robotic, multi-purpose excavators and the sole amphibian vehicle is insufficient to tackle the large mass of floating debris plaguing the city’s water bodies.
The Corporation had requested for more such vehicles and a recent government order sanctioned the civic body to buy a mini-amphibian vehicle at a cost of Rs 1.7 crore. “To carry out the desilting works efficiently, the equipment we have is insufficient. We can deploy the vehicles at four places to remove the water hyacinth and garbage, but we definitely need more to ensure that all the city’s waterways are desilted,” said a Corporation official, adding that the mini-amphibian will be helpful to clear out the surface of these canals.
The Corporation’s existing amphibian vehicle was procured at Rs 4.43 crores, with five years of operation and maintenance at Rs 5.53 crore, to remove water hyacinth, vegetation, floating materials and silt from major drains and canals with a width of 3.5 metre and above. The three robotic multi-purpose excavators have been acquisitioned at a total cost of Rs 19.62 crore with four years of operation and maintenance at a cost of Rs 9.28 crore, to desilt minor drains with a width lesser than 3 meters. These three machines can be monitored by GPS.
To desilt the city’s existing network of stormwater drains, the Corporation is acquiring six more robotic desilting machines. “We hope to acquire these vehicles before the monsoon,” said the official. The Corporation maintains a network of stormwater drains of length 1,894 kilometre and maintains 30 canals, which carry the rainwater to the sea.
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