Indore | The civic body of Indore, the country's cleanest city, on Wednesday added 100 electric vehicles to its garbage collection fleet to cut carbon emissions, officials said.

The EVs will collect trash from the city's central area, where air pollution caused by automobiles is more than that of other densely populated localities, they said.

Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) officials said that the non-polluting vehicles were inaugurated at a programme in the Rajwada area in the presence of state Urban Development and Housing Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya and local Lok Sabha MP Shankar Lalwani.

“We have resolved to make Indore, the country's cleanest city, a green city. Electric garbage collection vehicles will prove to be helpful in fulfilling this resolution. These vehicles will reduce air pollution, which will improve the health of citizens,” said Vijayvargiya at the event.

Citing an estimate, green energy expert Chetan Singh Solanki told PTI that a medium-sized diesel-powered garbage collection vehicle in Indore emits one kilogram of carbon when it covers five kilometres.

Solanki is a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and is leading an ongoing campaign to increase energy literacy in Indore.

“Electric garbage collection vehicles will obviously reduce carbon emissions in Indore. However, I believe that CNG-powered vehicles are more environmentally friendly,” he said.

An IMC official said that after the addition of 100 EVs, the urban body's fleet of trash collection vehicles will increase to 750.

“At present, 250 vehicles from IMC's garbage collection fleet are running on diesel, while the remaining 400 are being powered by CNG,” the official said.

According to the ‘Clean Air Catalyst' programme, a global alliance working to improve air quality, vehicular pollution and road dust have the highest 70 per cent share in deteriorating air quality in Indore.

In waste management, Indore has emerged as the best performer in the country, topping the National Sanitation Survey (Swachh Survekshan) for the seventh consecutive time.

The city is also in the race for the ‘Super Swachh League' for the year 2024. This league has been introduced for the first time as a separate competition among the cities performing “excellently” in cleanliness.

In the ‘Super Swachh League', Indore has been placed in the category of cities with a population of more than 10 lakh, along with Navi Mumbai and Surat.