Site Selection – An Interface Manager’s Perspective

Where research and ground realities meet: Project Sammaan!

I came to this realization while helping navigate the government land approval process. The research has its own considerations while the government officials have their own set of rules, so you need to find that delicate balance that satisfies both needs.

Here’s a peek into how the Indian government (at the municipality level, in this case) functions in terms of land approvals.

They have unique codes to identify any piece of land demarcated with some variables (such as, Mouza, Plot No, Khata No., and Ownership). What’s amazing is that with a unique combination of these variables (the coding scheme) you can identify the location of a unique piece of land on paper.

Government records are all well-maintained, though they can be disorganized at times. Finding land details may sound easy enough but it can end up taking you days to get all the details together.

The workload of land surveyors (or “Amins” as they are referred to in the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation), and their subsequent busy schedules, can work against you. However, they are experts in this field and, as such, their help is invaluable. They can easily locate your required site with the help of topographic and revenue maps, and a little free time.

BMC also has fantastic software, called “Bulekh”, for storing all land details. The Amins are trained to use the software to acquire any piece of information required. Bulekh is in Oriya (the native language) which makes it even easier for Amins to procure data.

Now, the real catch to getting all this information is to find both a system with the relevant software loaded on it and one that doesn’t crash on you when using it. The mantra is “keep waiting!” should the latter befall you.

The beauty is, after this at-times lengthy process, you get the exact site locations and related information, which are instrumental in getting land approvals. This, in turn, goes a long way towards making the project a success.

This might seem to reinforce the common notion that working with the government is challenging, but the journey is also an extremely rich one filled with different experiences and learning.

Though the process of retrieving it might be lengthy, the information and records that the government has access to, and stores through detailed systems and processes, further reinforces the fact that achieving impact and scale is impossible without partnering with the government; through patience, diligence and perseverance.