Sunday, August 18, 2013

Technology as the basis for infrastructure—Great leaps in India

(This article is an extension to the first article posted by Siddharth about how technology was used in the Kimbera Slum mapping project and UPS drivers for supply chain tracking. Following article quotes similar examples from India.)

As we all know that the issue of solid waste management has been a major concern for the government of Tamil Nadu and the corporation of Chennai and is being published in Hindu for couple of weeks now.

In today’s Times of India (page 5) I came across this article “Track emptying of garbage bins at click of mouse”. It’s about automation of the solid waste collection system. It is being adopted in Kodambakkam, Teynampet and Adyar zones. The 4,180 bins in 47 wards of the three zones are being tagged through a Global Positioning System (GPS). People can now keep a track whether the garbage in their locality is collected regularly by tracking it online. The drivers of compactors will click pictures of the cleared bins and upload them on to a monitoring system. On, garbage bins that are not cleared in the last 24 hours would be in red, while those cleared in the period will be in green. 

This system will help in efficiently monitoring the Solid Waste Collection in the city soon after its implementation.

 

 

The other example that I came across is that Dharavi Slum in Mumbai which is Asia’s Biggest Slum has been mapped using GIS.  GIS mapping has been implemented first time in India as part of the Dharavi Redevelopment project. Each and every structure and household in the 590 acre slum has been mapped. It would have been a tough task indeed considering the congested nature of slums.

 

The GIS-based biometric and socio-economic baseline survey will allow a user to- at the click of a button-narrow down on a particular structure and get information about its occupant with his/her picture, thumb impression, the family's profession, earning capacity, religion etc. The system will help to take appropriate decisions for redevelopment and also revenue generated from these sources can be accounted.


 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I’m not sure how accurate a mapping of Dharavi would be. Quite a few of the structures there would be makeshift, so I think it would be safe to assume that there is a fair bit of breaking down and reconstructing involved. Far more than in a normal sub urban scenario, at the least. Unless the mapping is being updated at a reasonably high frequency, would it really be of any use?

Aakanksha Jadhav said...

Hey varun your point about the nature of structures is valid. But as far as I know about that place most of the houses are permanent though they are below living standards and in an extremely dilapidated state.

The mapping was done in 2009 along with a socio-economic survey. Thus this helped the government to plan for the redevelopment project.Only permanent residents of the slum will be included in this project. And people staying on the first floor extension of such shanties are not considered.
Though updating the database is very important , I do not know whether it is really implemented.