The 70 km-range machine sweeps, washes and sucks up standing water; one truck will not shift the smog count, but it tests whether Punjab’s road-dust fleet can go electric.
LAHORE:Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif on Saturday launched what officials called Pakistan’s first fully electric sweeper truck. It will clean and wash Lahore’s Ring Road at the height of a smog season that has already pushed the city’s air quality index past 500.
Maryam Nawaz inspected the vehicle, watched a demonstration and was briefed on the project, the Punjab government said. The mechanical sweeper, also described as a broomer, will be used on the Ring Road, the city’s orbital expressway. Officials said it was the first sweeper in the country able to suck up and remove water from road surfaces as well as sweep and wash them.
According to the statement, the truck can run up to 70 km on a single charge, produces no exhaust emissions, and is quieter than diesel sweepers, cutting noise pollution. Officials said it would remove substantial fuel and maintenance costs and help keep dust down on the road.
The launch comes in a bad week for Lahore’s air. Monitors recorded readings above 500 earlier this month, and the city has repeatedly topped global pollution rankings. This week Iqbal Town hit 722 as the city answered smog with road washers.
Road dust that traffic kicks back into the air is one of the sources Punjab is trying to control. Before the season began, the Environment Protection Agency banned dry road sweeping and open burning, because brooms without water throw fine dust back into the air. Wet mechanical sweepers that also collect water avoid that problem.
Exhaust is a bigger problem than dust. The Punjab government’s Urban Unit has attributed about 83 percent of Lahore’s air pollution to road transport, with industry a distant second. The independent Pakistan Air Quality Initiative put transport at 35 percent and heavy industry at 28 percent of the city’s fine-particle pollution, findings the Punjab EPA rejected.
Estimates differ, but they agree that the motorcycles, rickshaws, buses and trucks on Lahore’s roads matter far more than the cleaning fleet. One electric sweeper is a pilot, not a smog solution. Its value will depend on whether Punjab replaces the diesel sweepers and water bowsers used by city waste and road agencies, and whether the batteries hold up in daily use.
The truck adds to the government’s broader push on electric transport, from electric buses in Multan to Sargodha. It also follows its Suthra Punjab sanitation drive, which officials have called the world’s largest.
Enforcement against polluting vehicles continues alongside, with Lahore police arresting smog violators as the city’s AQI passed 419 last month.
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