Delhi road sweepers will shift to night operations from November 1, with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi extending machine shifts, adding 2,000 contract workers and procuring 70 new sweepers as part of a pollution-control and cleanliness drive.
The MCD has ordered all 66 mechanical road sweepers currently deployed on roads wider than 60 feet to operate at night. Their working hours will be extended by four hours from the existing eight-hour shift until February 28, 2027. The order was issued by MCD commissioner Sanjeev Khirwar.
The civic body said the change was intended to improve cleaning coverage while reducing traffic disruption. Officials said the machines had been operating during the day, when parked vehicles made sweeping difficult and their movement contributed to congestion. The issue had also been raised repeatedly by residents and councillors.
At present, each machine covers approximately 25 to 30 kilometres a day. However, the existing fleet has not been able to adequately cover the roughly 1,400 kilometres of roads wider than 60 feet within a two-day cycle. The Ring Road is among the stretches where councillors have flagged inadequate cleaning.
The MCD plans to deploy 70 additional sweepers, each with a minimum daily coverage target of 40 kilometres. The new machines will also be used on roads between 30 and 60 feet wide, which account for approximately 1,700 kilometres of additional road length.
According to an MCD official, the contract for the existing machines required coverage of up to 30 kilometres a day, but cleaning four-lane roads with central verges proved difficult. The civic body also identified the need to cover roads narrower than 60 feet, which were not adequately served by the existing deployment.
The new machines are being procured from Italy and Switzerland. The first fleet is expected to be airlifted and deployed by mid-November, according to the official quoted in the report.
The MCD estimates that its combined mechanical-sweeping fleet will need to cover approximately 9,000 to 9,800 kilometres daily to meet its requirements. The gap between that requirement and the current coverage indicates the scale of the operational challenge facing the civic body, particularly on wider roads and stretches affected by parked vehicles or central verges.
Alongside the mechanical-sweeping changes, the MCD has ordered the deployment of an additional task force of 2,000 contract workers across all 12 zones. The civic body has also fixed departmental responsibilities and made four-hour daily inspections by zonal deputy commissioners mandatory.
The revised schedule and expanded fleet are intended to improve road-cleaning coverage during the period ending February 28, 2027. The first milestone is the planned mid-November deployment of the imported sweepers, while the extended night shifts begin on November 1.
