Country’s first sanitiser walkthrough gate installed

District administration claims facility at fruit and vegetable market is third in world after US and Turkey

JHANG: The Jhang district administration has installed the country’s first locally-made sanitiser walkthrough gate at a fruit and vegetable market.

The walkthrough gate is the third of its kind in the world, after similar facilities were installed in the United States and Turkey, the district administration claimed. The choice of the site to install the gate is also strategic, keeping in view the arrival of thousands of customers who visit the market daily to purchase essential items. The vegetables and fruit markets have been permitted to remain open by the authorities during the ongoing lockdown imposed to curb the spread of coronavirus. The innovative equipment consists of a frame using iron pipes with a fibreglass sheet on its exterior, The Express Tribune learnt.

There are nozzles inside the iron frame. A big drum of chlorinated water is placed at a little distance from the sanitiser gate which passes the water to the nozzles installed inside, with the help of an electric motor.



The pressure of the motor and narrow crevices of the nozzles converts the water to vapour which engulfs every individual passing through the gate, killing all types of germs on the person’s body, including coronavirus.

Considering the large number of visitors, the gate has been designed with a bigger size to allow maximum number of people to pass through it at a time. It was manufactured at a cost of Rs175,000. Smaller gates to cater to three to four persons at one time can be made at a cost of not more than Rs100,000 per unit.

The district administration claimed that the technology was already in use in the US and Turkey, while Pakistan had become the third country to have adopted it. Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Tahir Wattoo inaugurated the gate by walking through it.

Reportedly, the time required to manufacture the facility was five to six hours. Due to a short duration required for the manufacturing of the sanitiser walkthrough gate, more such gates can be installed outside banks, mosques, medical stores, grocery shops and other places that attract gatherings to protect the people from coronavirus.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2020.