Chandigarh, Oct 2 : Chandigarh may claim to be the cleanest city in India but an ambitious multi-million rupee plan of local authorities to make it still cleaner with imported Italian sweeping machines has backfired.

The city's mayor has recommended a vigilance probe into the Rs. 5 crore/Rs. 50 million purchase of the three Italian sweeping machines last year.

City councillors now allege that the sweeping machines have become white elephants due to their whopping cost, equally expensive maintenance and inability to actually clean the city.

While the city's municipal corporation has been rocked over the last one year over the controversial purchase of the machines, councillors now allege that the cost so far incurred in the purchase and maintenance of the machines in just one year has been nearly Rs. 9 crore/Rs. 90 million.

"That cost is enough to employ hundreds of sweepers to clean the city and they would have done a better job. If the corporation had employed 500 sweepers at a salary of Rs. 4,000 per month, the expense would have been just Rs. 2.4 crore (24 mn) annually. This would have given employment to so many people," councillor Jatinder Bhatia pointed out.

The city's medical officer of health (MOH) has now told the corporation that the sweeping machines were inefficient and are unable to sweep away leaves and stones. Even in cleaning mud and dust, the machines have a limited capacity as they are used to European conditions.

The machines have forced the corporation to spent nearly Rs. 1 mn on purchasing its special brooms and also used diesel worth Rs. 470,000 in one year alone. Other expenses, including the salaries of the driver and helper, run into hundreds of thousands more.

The replacement of one broom of each machine costs Rs. 19,000 and these have to be changed 4-5 times every year, officials here said.

"The operating cost of these machines is bound to go up every year. There are serious issues and objections about the utility of these machines. Officials never informed the corporation about what saving of manpower and money these machines will do. Responsibility for this lapse must be fixed," councillor Chander Mukhi Sharma told IANS.

The purchase of the machines last year was equally controversial. Top municipal corporation officials went to Italy to "inspect" the sweeping machines, at a cost of a few lakh rupees of public money, despite the fact that the same machines were being used by local authorities in New Delhi and could have been inspected there.

With Chandigarh claiming to be the greenest city in India, the inability of the Italian sweeping machines to clean falling leaves has become a major problem.(IANS)