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GIS only makes the municipal solution possible, not guaranteed.

Michael Duffy
Friends of Vrindavan
Email:gambhira@vsnl.com

There is no official tender for a GIS in Vrindavan and I doubt if there will be but GIS will still get done. Allow me to reason why. For five years we were under the grip of a corrupt municipal chairman. In the recent U.P. civic elections he lost. Our new mayor's colours are yet to be fully revealed but indications from initial meetings are positive and we have every reason to believe he will ratify the municipal resources needed (such as land for an MSW plant) and full municipal data access (for GIS) etc.

Historically municipality has been non inclusive of NGO's and other community stakeholders. We manage 50 safai karamchari's and 10 malis on several contracts including bio med wastes collection and incineration in Vrindavan / Mathura. Friends of Vrindavan (FoV) are the second largest employer in Vrindavan. FoV has over time demanded recognition as a major stakeholder in Municipal and Government planning and execution in the area. Only by consistent lobbying has this come about and thus manifested the option to explore GIS for Vrindavan. Is this Grace or the winds of change.

Potential improvement of property tax collection by GIS and how this basic GIS data can pay for itself quickly, is not a difficult financial equation for most people to grasp. If so then where is the block if it is not being done countrywide. GIS challenges the status'non inclusive'quo.

Political and bureaucratic technophobes do realize free information challenges their Raj. FoV has precipitated the local heckling, lobbying and years long battle on a raft of issues including the immediate and comprehensive planning and transparent auditing of municipal affairs. This is non political environmental activism. Any community social indicator survey here would result in a similar demand along with the natural response that basic needs (water, clean air, garbage, sewage) services be provided and managed as best as possible. Community also generally respond with a willingness to contribute financially to, e.g., decent toilets and sewage connection to the municipal system. Community fiscal participation can range from 20% - 50 % of a project cost such as toilet insertion across a town , enough to discuss a combination matching community funds with a loan/grant package with funders.

In the majority community also generally wishes to contribute to an efficient garbage collection recycling scheme. All that needs be done is deliver it. Which in theory runs like this - if a 100 ton MSW plant produces 10,000 tons of organic fertiliser per year, it can be enriched with local cow dung and sold. The plant employs 40 or so. Gross profits pay back the loan, provides cash flow, maintains the plant etc. A nett. profit percentage is used to gradually develop the safai karam chari's community, school, road, trees etc. and a nett. profit percentage is distributed to all MSW plant and municipal safai karamchari staff. The town gets better disciplined staff to raising productivity and a much improved mechanism to hire and fire. What also seems to happen is that our teams of karamchari's become self supervising as the mutual level of trust with employer develops and slackness diminishes.

Low cost items such as uniforms can help immensely. Team identity inculcates a sense of pride in staff and in staff presentation to community and thus community perception of sweepers can be gradually whittled away at.

Whacking in a MSW plant in a town or city is not a solution (e.g., North Delhi MSW).

Having reached an opportunity to push through GIS is the stage we are at in Vrindavan. Any company likely to get on site swiftly to practically interact with us would be a welcome help in bringing any proposal and implementation deal closer to fruition. One company has already done this and earned impressive initiative points. It is great to communicate with GIS companies in Chennai and Kolkata but it can never beat an on site visit and I would baulk at commissioning a company so far away because of the potential logistics hassle. It makes sense to work with a Delhi based company. A company which can come and lend a hand at this most crucial point.

"Time is seldom wasted in reconnaissance" (Col. Montgomery) and getting the feel of an area is not an electronic thing is it ? We do have to be hands on and grass roots about evangelizing GIS across the country and win over administrators and municipalities. The industry may do well to promote itself in the rural regions and smaller towns. There are many ways to hook up and develop contacts of course, through NGO's and other civil organizations and also the IAS whose officers are (in our plains U.P. experience) by and large GIS aware and pro the concept. They also need help to bring it about. Holistic solutions providers create commissions by catalysing funders (e.g., HUDCO, WB, WHO) with clients. We know there is a need in most Indian towns over 50,000 population and that funding channels exist. The examples of MSW can enhance municipal earnings.

Providers make these sort of claims. "To optimise the garbage collection points and designing an effective network which will ensure efficiency and cleanliness". Yes, this is ambiguous but it is also a very tall claim as I know that this company cannot deliver on this claim without an immense amount of grass roots interaction. It can deliver an ideal, preferable system but it cannot make the thing work without incentive led safai karamchari's. Once installed and running our MSW plant, CNG bus shuttles, car parks, traffic wardens, water, sewage management and improved tax collection will be a holistic solution of a synthesis of hard and software, grass roots and board room. Up and running and making money with a cleaner, healthier city as a bonus.

Of course there's more to 'solutions providing' than surveys, databases and pretty maps which one or two companies would have me believe, I realise this but I do wonder whether some of the companies wanting to deploy GIS in Vrindavan realise this and the degree of multifarious forces that are at play in managing a municipality. Inevitably companies active in GIS implementation are in competition with each other. Tall claims will be made by some. I am panning for a company cognizant of the human dimension as people hold the total key to the success or not of a municipality and regarding garbage and clean cities that key is the safai karamchari community. The rest is technology which only makes the solution manageable and in this case the providers relevant. That's the present structure within which we must operate, until privatisation changes the equation perhaps for the better of the greater common good.

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