BSNL to track and monitor waste transportation for Swachh Bharat Mission
The Ministry of Urban Development today announced its partnership with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) for implementing a vehicle tracking and monitoring system, to track and monitor all vehicles engaged in collection and transportation of solid waste in 4041 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in the country. BSNL has agreed to develop an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Platform -eSBM – for enabling effective reporting, monitoring and control of individual municipalities and on-ground workers through an innovative Web application. A Memorandum of Understanding to the effect has been signed today between the Ministry of Urban Development and BSNL.
The ICT platform, which is likely to go live by June 2016, will allow the cities to monitor fleet status through a GPS-based vehicle tracking system, provide MIS reports for waste collection and transportation and notify ULBs about vehicle breakdown and maintenance etc. thereby ensuring a higher level of transparency in civic administration. BSNL has also offered to supplement the Solid Waste Management handling process more effectively by providing additional features in the platform, if required by respective ULBs.
Speaking on the occasion, Shri Praveen Prakash,Joint Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development & Mission Director – Swachh Bharat Mission, said “The application and platform developed will help the center and individual ULBs to ensure effective implementation of waste management & waste collection. The MoU signed is yet another initiative by the MoUD, using technology to improve and smoothen ground-level mechanisms and operations. The Ministry will strive to ensure that all the 4041 ULBs enter into agreement with BSNL for this work.”
The e-SBM ICT platform will be ready for launch by May 2016, and the implementation of the solution and hardware devices in vehicles will be done within the next two months, depending upon the number of vehicles in a particular ULB. The first phase of the roll-out will be done in 75 major cities in India.
Expressing his delight over the announcement, Shri Anupam Srivastava, CMD, BSNL said: “We are very happy to be associated with MoUD to provide such an important service to the nation. The platform would further enable individual municipalities to manage and monitor their workforce and the fleet assigned to collect waste, hence using technology to solve on-ground issues. We hope that the application of the solution would result in efficient on-ground staff handling, and prove to be a big step towards the Swachh Bharat dream.”
Solid Waste Management has been one of the most crucial aspects of Swachh Bharat Mission, with a budget outlay of Rs. 37,000 crore. This includes leveraging modern technologies for Solid Waste Management, capacity augmentation of Urban Local Bodies, involving private sector, and bring behavioral and social change to encourage residents to reduce /recycle their own waste. The mission targets the achievement by 2018-19 of scientific Solid Waste Management in 4,041 cities and towns, impacting 30.6 crore people.
