Dust in the City!

The first thing that comes to our mind when someone mentions Aurangabad Roads? Dust of course!! Why do we have so much dust on our streets? Here are the reasons behind it.

1. Lack of paved streets
2. Inefficient cleaning
3. Lack of vegetation along the streets.
4. Dry weather.
5. Constant digging for services maintenance works

Like in most Indian Cities, dust is a major concern for Aurangabad. It comprises particles emitted due to wear and tear of tyres and brakes and increases even further in case the roads are not paved. Traditionally, all the streets, sidewalks and public areas are swept manually and depending on the resources, poor or marginal areas receive reduced or inadequate service or no service at all. However, often in manual street sweeping, most of the dust swept is left on the side of the roads, which gets re-entrained when vehicle movement resumes during the day.

A better alternative is heavy-duty or light-duty trucks with vacuum cleaners to suck up dust from the roads, so that the re-suspension of any leftover dust is suppressed.

The operational costs of mechanized sweeping could be similar to manual sweeping – given that the latter is a labor intensive exercise. Since the road dust accounts for up to 30-40 percent of the PM10 pollution in most Indian cities, an immediate intervention for this source is vital for controlling the particulate pollution.

Constant digging of roads for maintenance of service lines such as Water, Electricity and sewer also results into more and more dust on the streets. Lack of paved roads also results in a lot of dust continuously suspended in air due to dry weather and vehicle movement. Vegetation along the roads would have helped in controlling the dust too.

So, an ideal and long lasting solution with multiple benefits is to develop well designed streets. Modern streets must be designed to carry a number of infrastructure services such as water, sewer, storm water, electrical, and telephone lines. The sidewalks would ensure less dust on the roads, at the same time accommodating various urban services within it. So every time a pipeline needs to be repaired, the carriageway remains intact, without bringing more dust on the streets.

Written by Pallavi Deore

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