Soon, you can go online to plug leaks, clear garbage

Taking cues from civic bodies of developed nations, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has gone full throttle on the hi-tech path. After putting in place a successful pothole-tracking system, the BMC now plans to launch an integrated tracking system for four essential services: Water supply, storm-water drains, sewerage operations and solid waste management. This will be a big leap for the civic body which has been severely criticized for its poor services, especially contractors' inefficiency.
TOI has learnt that this system's objective is to involve citizens in tracking services that often go unmonitored in spite of complaints. This system will be very similar to the one used by the roads department and allow citizens to click pictures and apprise civic officials of any shortcomings.
Confirming the development, Rajiv Jalota, additional municipal commissioner, told TOI, "We plan to launch an integrated tracking system to monitor the services that we deliver. It would allow citizens to participate in the civic process and help improve it. The complaints mechanism will be overhauled and enable us to monitor it in a systematic manner."
It will be very similar to the website used by the roads department - voiceofcitizen.com - and enable citizens to click pictures of leaking pipelines or sources of contaminated water and apprise civic officials about these. The civic body has selected the four departments as they are used by citizens on a daily basis. As far as water supply is concerned, the system will cater to complaints on leaking pipelines, sources of contaminated water and water pressure. In case of solid waste management, the plan is to geo-tag all collection points. The civic body's solid waste management department will be entrusted with the job of clicking pictures of collection points. This will help the civic headquarters keep a close check on the collection process and identify spots that might be left out.
In all cases, the pictures will be uploaded to a central server and a monitoring team will be set up. It will be responsible for ensuring that complaints are looked into. As in the case of the pothole-tracking system, citizens would be allowed to click pictures of uncollected garbage and leaking pipelines with Android cellphones and upload them online.
The civic body is already in consultation with several software developers and is likely to float tenders in the coming days.
Sources suggest that the integrated tracking system is likely to be rolled out in three months.