Bridging the Gap

Project Sammaan is a highly innovative and demanding project, and one of the major concerns involves dealing with government policies and process. As one of the Interface Managers, my major responsibilities revolve around acting as a bridge between the Project Sammaan team and the government partners. I am also responsible for weighing in on decisions, both large and small, in such a way that risk is controlled and uncertainty minimised for the project.

My day-to-day activities include risk assessment, representing the project’s interests, enhancing relationships between the government and non-government partners, and maintaining awareness of the project’s needs and parameters so that any bumps along the way does not interfere with the project’s implementation too greatly. More importantly, I also work to ensure that the project strategy is clearly defined and communicated to the government and confer with all project team members on strategic or technical issues to ensure the project is successful and that it meets specific goals in a timely manner. The most challenging part of my job is to communicate the team’s thoughts to the government officials, as they can be very rigid in their approach; government officials are often hesitant to adapt to changes.

As the medium between Project Sammaan and the Government, CTRAN has been part of several significant milestones. We have facilitated liaising with the Government and other project partners (especially Quicksand and J-PAL) and have been actively involved in all activities such as validation of documents, navigating the tendering process, and coordinating with CMC/BMC officials to keep them abreast of project progress.

In thinking about the challenges that have been faced to this point, they all tend to involve the same issue: clearly conveying to the government officials the importance of Project Sammaan and how its’ innovations will improve the lives of thousands of citizens in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. The BMC and CMC partners are oftentimes busy with numerous other infrastructure projects, and many of these much larger in terms of cost, so underscoring the impact Sammaan will have on the health and well-being of its users was critical in keeping people’s attention focused on our initiative. Doing so involves spending a great deal of time interacting with the various officials to ensure the relationship remains cordial and that Sammaan stays at the forefront of their minds.

The next milestone will be finally obtaining the technical sanction of Bhubaneswar’s Community Toilet tenders, as well as to address the issues with Cuttack’s tender that has thus far prevented the award of contract due to a lack of qualified bidders. Another important achievement will be getting approval for the O&M approach presented to the engineering team at the CMC so that we can move forward with the necessary tender documents for such. These are some of the achievements that we are currently focusing on and will hopefully have resolved in the coming weeks and months.

The challenges in achieving these, and all, milestones are numerous, though most can be boiled down to the simple matter of time: there is a stipulated, stringent timeline for the project and internal and external pressures for the project and its partners can cause delays. Currently, the project is at a very critical juncture. The tenders have been floated for Cuttack’s community toilets and Bhubaneswar’s public toilets, but progress has stalled on both fronts as no qualified bidders have been identified, meaning that the tenders have to be re-floated; the review of documents for Bhubaneswar’s community toilets is still underway, so the floating of those tenders is still pending. Once the contracts have been awarded, the next major challenge will be the facility construction; sites will need to be cleared, provisions made for temporary toilets, community engagement activities will need to be conducted, and the team is racing the monsoons as the upcoming rains will severely impact construction. Personally, I am most looking forward to moving beyond the review phase and getting into the actual construction of these facilities. I want this sanitation dream to be a realistic dream.

Sanitation has always been a major concern in India. Besides mobilizing the mass media to give adequate coverage to such a serious issue, there is a need for involvement of NGOs and community-based organizations, and communities themselves, to tackle the crisis of India’s sanitation failure. The foremost thing we should do is to educate the public on how better sanitation can improve their lives while providing functional facilities to reduce the dependence by so many millions here on open-defecation. Once the public understands the need, and utilities are provided for their sanitation needs, it will be far easier to make the sanitation dream a reality.