The ‘smart city mission’ launched by the union government is an opportunity for all urban local governments in Odisha to ensure the criteria of the smart city mission not only to fulfill the eligibility but actually deliver services in a smart way, said speakers at a workshop here on Tuesday.
The Youth for Social Development, a NGO and other civil society bodies conducted the workshop to assess the status of Berhampur Municipal Corporation vis-a-vis the eligibility for the smart city scheme.
The strategic components required are city improvement (retrofitting), city renewal (redevelopment) and city extension (greenfield development) plus a pan-city initiative in which smart solutions are applied covering larger parts of the city. The scoring process remains hard like existing service levels, institutional systems and capacities, self financing and past track record and reforms.
There is enough scope for the urban local governments and they are empowered to make legislation and execute better service delivery without waiting for centrally sponsored schemes.
Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) is struggling hard to be eligible for the scheme. It is difficult not only for BeMC but most of the cities in Odisha to reach the score in all most all criteria like the existing service level in basic citizen services set under smart city mission.
In Berhampur most of the criteria are performing consistently poor be it water supply , sanitation , solid waste management etc, observed the participants. Only 6.3 percent of the households are connected with drains without sewage collection, transmission and treatment facility.
Surprisingly only 39 percent of the households have access to toilets and open defecation is rampant (59.5 percent). 26270households living in slums have poor housing and IHSDP (755DUs in last five years) and Rajiv Awaz Yojana unable to provide houses to the urban poor since 2010-11. Bad road conditions, poor traffic management and unreached transport system to all wards has clearly demonstrations mobility conditions in the city. The e-governance, egrievance has not been up to desired levels and the website of the municipality is not updated.
On the other hand the resource generation of the civic body has persistently declined since 2010 to 2015. There are hardly any use of ICT for service delivery, lodge complaint and citizen feedback and e-news letter published overnight on the occasion of getting eligible.
Despite all these shortcomings, Berhampur can qualify to the smart city mission scheme because Berhampur is oldest municipality in Odisha (constituted 1867), a commercial, educational, cultural and tourist hub of south Odisha.
It has tremendous potential for industrial corridor (can be connected to Vizag Chennai Industrial corridor), a rich coastal area and productive agriculture belt, noted Bibhu Prasad Sahu of the Youth for Social Development.
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Quelle/Source: The Statesman, 22.07.2015
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