IIT-KGP develops vehicle with mechanised broom to clean public places

Kolkata, May 29 () A group of researchers at IIT Kharagpur has developed a vehicle with mechanised broom that runs on battery and solar power to clean roads and public places, an official said on Friday.

The vehicle, named Sammarjak MB 4.2, uses two mechanised brooms and has been successfully tested across the 2,100 acre campus of the institute during the ongoing lockdown.

IIT-Kharagpur director Prof Virendra K Tewari has planned to deploy it on campus as the authority expects to face a shortage of cleaning staff, a spokesperson of the institute said.

Talking about the current labour situation on the campus, Tewari said, "We had restricted entry of a significant section of the workforce to our campus from late March. Further, we have reassigned some cleaning staff towards sanitising the key areas on the campus.

"But considering the size of our campus, we need a substantial number of sanitation workers, and this gap is being filled by automated brooming system across all the pathways."

Prof Mihir Sarangi, who led the innovation, said the system is highly flexible and can be deployed to clean roads.

"Being an indigenously-built technology, we kept in mind the steep curves and undulations of Indian streets and made the brooms adjustable vertically and horizontally," he said.

Sarangi said the researchers use solar power charging system in addition to the battery to keep the running cost of the vehicle low. SUS BDC BDC