Dhaka city cleaning trucks gather dust in repair yard

Dhaka’s roads are dustier due to multiple development works but the city’s cleaning trucks are not of use.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests gave two vacuum cleaning trucks to each of Dhaka’s two city corporations. 

Six JAC trucks were bought from China with Tk 52.3 million and under a pilot scheme financed by the climate change trust fund.

The other two were with Chittagong city authorities. 

But the trucks that meant to serve the project aimed at promoting fast cleaning and recycling became useless before the end of a year.

Dhaka city officials said the parts began to falter and the vehicles became hard to operate within a month of their launching.

The trucks were now gathering dust in the city corporation’s repair factory in Dhalpur, they said.

South Dhaka City Corporation waste management official, engineer Abu Saleh Md Mainuddin, said the trucks ‘cannot sweep’ the streets.

“These trucks no longer work. We tried hard to keep them operational. But we couldn’t get any service. North Dhaka could not even run them. But we were able to for some time.”  

The trucks covered in dust at the repair factory yard. Even the paint seemed to be flaking off in some places.

A number of officials involved with the mechanical branch, requesting anonymity, said the engine was damaged by dust that entered there, passing ‘through the air filter’. 

Vacuum trucks have two engines. One drives the trucks while the other runs the cleaning apparatus. The latter causes most problems, said an official.  

“These engines were overhauled three times. Overhaul works are done every four years in most other vehicles. The vacuum apparatus stops working every now and then,” he said.

He said the machine parts are not easily available.

Syed Anwarul Islam, chief engineer at Dhaka North City Corporation, also had complaints.

“We can’t use the trucks we got. They actually make roads dustier. These stir up more dust than it cleans.”

But Anwar Hossain Howlader, director of the government project that bought the trucks, said the city corporations were reluctant to use them.    

“The city corporations were meant to take care of the trucks we gave them. They are fine.... these people they don’t want to use them. Something else is the actual matter.”

When asked to elaborate, he said, “There are some things you can’t talk about.”    

He however said the vehicles were not compatible with Dhaka streets.

“Our roads are not as clean as those in foreign cities that have lighter dust particles which are easy to take out.  Our roads have tough pollutants like big chunks of brick and other broken things. Those create problems.”

When asked why that was not considered during procurement, he said, “I wasn’t project director back then.”