Clean India Journal marked the ‘Clean India Week’ from December 2 to 7, 2013, as a curtain raiser to Clean India Pulire 2013. The Clean India Team took initiatives in creating awareness about clean environment as a step ahead. One important activity during the week was cleaning up the Goregaon Bus Depot in Mumbai. Karcher Cleaning Systems Private Limited & Kaarya Facilities and Services Pvt. Ltd supported the cleaning operations.
Hailing the welcome step taken by the Clean India team, Shripat Kare, Deputy Chief Engineer, Western Suburb-BEST, who is in-charge of six depots said, “The demonstration of professional methods used for cleaning, buses, restrooms and toilets at the depot has brought forth the possible methods that can be implemented to improve the existing cleaning and maintenance programme handled by our engineering department.”
While the eight-member team of Kaarya headed by Nilesh Kumar, Senior Manager – Kaarya Facilities and Services Pvt Ltd cleaned the toilets and restrooms, Karcher team headed by AK Sahu, Territorial Manager – Karcher, cleaned the bus. “Cleaning the restroom was quite difficult due to all kinds of stains spotted all over the walls. We used R6 chemical, to clean the toilet seats and floor, R1 to sanitize and R5 liquid for freshening up the air. Though removing the dark spots which have appeared over the years was very difficult, we have managed to bring it up to the required hygiene standards,” said Nilesh.
Cleaning inside the buses normally takes loads of water and manpower as it uses thick water pressure, which is not an efficient way. Sahu said, “Along with RM81 liquid in 1/3 ratio with water, we have used 3-phase SD 7/17 car washer that took around half-an-hour to clean a whole bus. The good thing is that one janitor is enough to do the job within the prescribed time bringing extra gloss on the bus. This has been a great opportunity for us to demonstrate the latest product benefits to the end consumers and we would like to do so more in future as part of our CSR.”
About the BEST practices and expenses on cleaning, Shripat Kare said, “We spend 1/4th of the total expenditure on cleaning & maintenance. We usually have one assistant engineer and one senior engineer at each depot to supervise cleaning.”
Suprita Anupam