The municipal corporation (MC) here is going to take a call on Monday on introducing a Rs 9.7-crore system called Scada (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) to check its growing problem of garbage management.
By launching Scada, the civic body hopes to introduce a plethora of technologies to monitor every single activity undertaken by its staff — be it garbage truck drivers, helpers or other field staff. The agenda item in this regard is expected to be discussed and decided by the members of the MC’s general house.
The project’s cost is estimated at Rs 9.66 crore, which includes Rs 3.29 crore as capital. Under it, the MC plans to install GPS devices on all 450 garbage trucks and vehicles, biometric attendance devices for staff, create a geo-fence for monitoring staff, launch Swachh Bharat, citizen and driver apps, have information of door-to-door garbage collection, and a web dashboard.
A control centre with a life-size monitoring screen will also be set up with dedicated staff for keeping an eye on each segment.
Initially, Chandigarh Smart City — the special purpose vehicle for undertaking projects under Smart City Mission — will look after the initiative. Later, it will be handed over to the MC for operation and maintenance. Scada will also be integrated with the command and control centre of Chandigarh Smart City.
“The broad objective of the proposed system is to improve the efficiency of collection, transportation and disposal of solid waste from Chandigarh by implementation of a reliable, smart digital solution to monitor, track, operate and manage SWM (solid waste management) tasks through citizen empowerment and door-to-door collection, thereby reducing/resolving customer complaints with positive feedback mechanism,” the agenda item reads.
At present, the management of solid waste is a major challenge for the civic body authority, and it gets numerous complaints every day. Absence of employees from the field, improper lifting of garbage and irregular plying of vehicles are some key problems which the MC is facing. As the MC has managed to bring doorto-door garbage collectors under its control, Scada will help it monitor the activities of other staff too.