Unless the scope of work is clearly defined and complexities duly factored in, government and its various wings cannot effectively work with private players, says G. Mathi Vathanan, Principal Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department, Government of Odisha.
What are some of the key projects that your department has introduced, and how will these initiatives help the common man?
Currently, we are implementing the Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Act and the JAGA Mission, which is one of our flagship programs that aims at transforming slums into livable habitats with adequate infrastructure and services. The mission is being implemented in 3000 slums, benefitting 1.8 million people across the state. So far, in less than 18 months, surveys have been completed in 2,000 slums using drones, high-resolution spatial data and extensive community mobilization. As many as 1,886 slum dwellers’ associations have been formed, 1,47,000 households have been surveyed and their data has been captured and validated. Out of these, 51,041 families have already been granted land rights certificates. This has been possible through massive community participation and robust project monitoring. The mission stands on the foundation of statutory land rights and strives to carry out holistic development of slum areas by upgrading them to livable habitats.
We are also implementing BASUDHA scheme in all urban areas of the state to achieve universal access to piped water supply in all wards of 114 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) (100% coverage, including slums) in mission mode, benefitting 70 lakh citizens by 2020.
An essential feature of an urban area is street lighting. However, many of our urban areas do not have street lighting. The existing streetlights are very old, conventional and produce more heat and less lumen. We want to revamp the entire street lighting system in all urban areas. This is a highly mismanaged area. As it is a very critical public service, we have taken up a statewide smart energy efficient LED street lighting program covering all 114 ULBs. So far, 310,000 lights have been installed across 114 ULBs, which translates into 75% coverage. Six months down the line, you will not find any street that does not have smart LED lights. All the existing conventional, energy inefficient lights will be replaced, and all the streets that are currently not illuminated will also be lit. We are working with a number of private partners in the execution of these projects.
How did you find out which areas were not well lit and needed smart streetlights, was a ground survey done?
The tenders for installing smart streetlights were prepared in such a way that the project scope covered survey, installation plan and execution. We also conducted a sample survey of few cities on saturation basis and have also taken information from the ULBs on how many light points they have. The survey gave us an indicative number of the streetlights required with which we have gone ahead as the minimum committed quantities of light points in the tender document.
How are you using technology in piped water supply and street lighting projects?
Street lighting is an important service provided by ULBs. Issues such as poor maintenance, lack of optimization and technological upgradation not only affect the quality of services, but also put an extra burden on the energy demand of local government services and subsequent costs to the ULBs with significant budget allocations for high energy consumption (bill payment) and maintenance costs.
LED-based street light technology and automation advances offer better illumination and significant cost savings through an updated energy efficient technology with better lighting quality and significant energy savings. The smart street light project provides an opportunity to lower maintenance and replacement costs due to better service life and by incorporating better management practices in the street lighting system leading to improved performance and street lighting services by leveraging better technology and information services.
With project implementation though PPP mode, the implementing agencies will be responsible to mobilize a part of the capital investment and the costs towards subsequent O&M of the street lighting network. With the project structured under a performance-based model, implementing agencies would be bound to maintain more than 95% street light availability, to maintain required lighting levels as per standards and to facilitate seven years of O&M period post-installation with minimum seven year warranty for LED luminaires.
The Centralized Control and Monitoring System (CCMS) technology deployed allows remote and automated control capabilities and prevents wastage of electricity, helps in data analytics and promote smart management and multi-modal complaint recording (via helpline, mobile app, SMS & web) ensures swift complaint redressal.
In the water supply sector, the technologies we have adopted are
Smart Water Information Management System (SWIMS): Online dashboard showing real-time water supply status across all ULBs of Odisha.
Online Project Monitoring System (MoPrIDE): Real-time project monitoring tool to track the progress of various development projects.
Arc GIS– Asset Mapping: Water supply infrastructure is mapped using Arc GIS. City wise cadastral revenue maps and data from municipal and government agencies of all the ULBs have been digitized and a web-enabled GIS municipal asset management system has been set up.
IoT: Real-time monitoring of water supply operations like pumping, loading of storage reservoirs, tracking of water distribution through tankers (with RFID).
SCADA (Supervisory control And Data Acquisition) system: Control of operations at source and treatment of water through automation using SCADA system.
In addition, we have adopted drone-based survey for mapping of urban slums to provide land rights and for asset mapping.
e-municipality: Revenue collection system is digitized to offer services across Odisha covering about 7 Million people
Have you mapped these projects, or performed a consolidated field survey. Which all companies have been engaged?
We carried out a field survey through our functionaries. In fact, two separate surveys were conducted by different agencies. For smart LED street lighting, we are working with Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a central PSU. We have signed an MoU with them after which three to four agencies have been roped in for retrofitting execution. For the other project, we have engaged Deloitte as our transaction advisor. They brought in another agency for the sample survey, which helped us to get an indicative number to serve as minimum committed quantities. For execution of work in the entire state, we have divided the project into five parts.
How do you see private sector complementing your work? What challenges have you faced while working with them?
Private sector has been trusted partners in our urban transformation journey. However, to ensure that we have the right partner, we need to adopt a very high level of diligence, right from the stage of the tender. Unless the scope of work is clearly defined and complexities duly factored in, you will not be able to do a proper tender. And that will decide your bidding parameter, and eventually the success of the program. We need the right set of people to monitor and execute this process.
What can technology providers do to make your work easier and more efficient?
It would be good if they fully understand our requirements and the contextual variations, and then come up with a customized solution, rather than coming up with their readymade solutions that we can’t use. For instance, in JAGA Mission, a tool has been developed and customized by Cadasta Foundation that captures data of urban slum households. Through that tool, household data was captured, validated and made available for use.
How have you been able to leverage your partnership with various stakeholders? What are the engagements, challenges and opportunities?
The engagement is need-based. When we have a specific need, we look for the right partner for it. The scope of work is well defined in terms of what we need from them and what they are supposed to deliver so that we have a clear understanding of it. We understand the limitations of our partners and try to fill the gaps wherever we can. You know it is very difficult to get a partner who has everything, even for a limited scope of work. They might be good in some aspects, but not in the others. So, there is no point in changing partners without knowing their strength and weaknesses. We try to work on their weaknesses, giving them training and other support, to tide over their genuine constraints.
