Battery-operated auto-rickshaws will collect garbage from households in the city soon as the Andhra Pradesh government will provide 65 e-autorickshaws to the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC).
As a part of the Clean Andhra Pradesh (CLAP) initiative, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy flagged off 516 e-autorickshaw from his camp office at Tadepalli on June 8 (Thursday).
A senior official of the GVMC said that the vehicles, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), would be used for door-to-door garbage collection in the city.
“The GVMC has been sending proposals seeking e-vehicles for the collection of garbage for years. Finally, we are getting the vehicles. The government is providing battery-operated vehicles as a part of the move to reduce consumption of fossil fuel,” said an official of the GVMC.
He said that the use of e-vehicles would reduce the expenditure by 70% when compared to that of diesel-run vehicles used for the collection of garbage. Meanwhile, the GVMC has already set up some charging points for the e-vehicles at its head office, while the APEPDCL has also set up a few points. Plans are afoot to set up more charging points for e-vehicles, he said.
“The e-vehicles are compact. They can pass through small bylanes and function easily in the hilly areas of the city. These vehicles not only help reduce emissions but also are cost-effective. These heavy-duty vehicles require less maintenance,” explained a senior official of GVMC.
At present, around 600 CLAP vehicles are collecting waste from households in the city. Nearly 1,000 MT of solid waste is produced in the GVMC limit per day. A part of it is being dropped at the Mini-Sewage Farms, while the rest goes to Jindal’s Waste-to-Energy Recycling plant at Kapuluppada.
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