BSNL, Urban Development Ministry ink MoU for waste management

The Ministry of Urban Development has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with state-run telco 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.

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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.

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, 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.

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.