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 (more…)

We recently conducted a review of various Operations and Maintenance (O&M) models, which we submitted to the government. The objective was to outline existing O&M models for communal sanitation facilities in India and highlight how the strengths and weaknesses of these models are informing Project Sammaan’s approach.

We studied cases on the Pune Model of NGO maintenance and Corporation-funded, NGO-managed construction, the case of management and part-funded construction by a community-based organization in the Kanpur slums, the Trichi model where the self-help groups trained by NGOs took over the maintenance of the Corporation’s existing toilets, and the case of Puri where community members took on the management of a toilet block constructed by an NGO.

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There has been an exciting new development with Project Sammaan. Siva Cotipalli has disengaged from the initiative due to other, more pressing professional considerations and I have taken over his responsibilities as project manager.

The change comes at a fairly critical juncture in Sammaan as we continue working towards the release of the tender for the Public Toilets in Bhubaneswar and securing the technical sanctions for the Community Toilets in both Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.

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A lot of my work in Project Sammaan revolves around building strategic relationships with the various government departments in the BMC, the CMC and the Government of Odisha.

Some of the key departments that I interact regularly are:

Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC): BMC is one of the partners of Project Sammaan and is headed by the Mayor, who is an elected representative. From the administrative side, BMC is headed by the Commissioner; from Sammaan side, we have monthly review meetings of the project with the Commissioner.

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Project Sammaan is a dynamic project with multiple deliverables at any time. Currently, the team is working on the following:

Release of tenders for construction of 27 Public Toilets: The tender documents for Public Toilets were submitted in the last week of March 2013. After that, the team worked with BMC to obtain technical sanctioning and approval from the H&UD department. However, the tenders are stuck due to delays in land approvals and differences in modalities of vendor selection between the BMC and the H&UD department; the team is working with both in an effort to fast-track the process.

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The month of August involved several liaisoning activities. Monthly review meetings helped the team assess the progress of the project in the government wings for both Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC). August also saw enforcement of the Model code of Conduct in 91 ULBs, though BMC and CMC were exempted. A series of discussions and successive decisions in the Government wing helped to lay down strategies for faster and smoother execution of the project, including deciding on the contractor for construction of the 27 Public Toilets in Bhubaneswar.

In the Cuttack Municipal Corporation preparation for submission and approval of the Detailed Project report and other relevant documents for transfer of Government allocated funds was the major activity in August. The Engineering wing provided the Project Sammaan team with several inputs on packaging and technical parameters as per the norms of the Government for the tender. Strategic plans were also developed to ensure that the work orders are issued before the enforcement of the model code of conduct in Cuttack.

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The month of July was phenomenal for both strategic planning and milestone achievement!

Among these milestones was the procurement of administrative approval from the Government of Odisha by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, which was routed through the Housing and Urban Development Department. The administrative approval from the government was the final authentication on the estimates of the public sanitation facilities. This also supported a step ahead in the project by initiating the tendering process. The format of the tender document has been pushed to the Engineering team for final scrutiny.

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June was important in terms of liasoning and capacity building for Project Sammaan. Some of the most important and crucial decision-making meetings with Principal Secretary, H&UD Dept and Commissioners of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and Cuttack Municipal Corporation were arranged during the month.

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The month of May was all about coordinating for the advancement of the project and the pending deliverables to be accomplished. CTRAN successfully coordinated for the exposure visit to Nagpur for the DEWATS system. Apart from this CTRAN arranged and corresponded for the monthly meetings on the 8th and 9th of this month.

Multiple interactions with other divisions concerned with water supply and sewerage for creating a database of information on the sewerage connections in the proposed locations were facilitated.

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Operations & Maintenance (O&M) is one of the four pillars of innovation, primarily due to the fact that shortcomings and failures within this largely determines the success of the facilities.

Given the importance of this workstream, a great deal of time and effort has gone into understanding the current models that are employed, while exploring practical changes that can be made to operating and maintaining these facilities while improving the quality of life of the caretakers themselves, both through their perceived value and position within the communities they serve and by addressing unfair business practices that put an undue financial strain on them.

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