Revisiting Bhubaneswar’s Sites

The drastically reduced budget for the Community Toilets in Bhubaneswar will only allow us to build only 26 of the originally planned 60 facilities. This meant that the team had to decide which communities would receive a facility and which would be forced to keep their fingers-crossed in hopes that sometime in the future their needs will be met. Doing so was no small task, and one that required the participation of virtually all those working on the initiative. Further complicating matters was the two-week deadline mandated by the government to complete the work.

The first step in this process was visiting all proposed sites to identify any encroachment issues. As the land was identified and allocated to the project nearly 2 years ago, there was serious concern that many of the sites would no longer be open and available for construction. In fact, (more…)

Update on Sammaan Milestones

Project Sammaan is a multi-partner, long-term, and large-scale implementation project. At any time there are at least 7 to 8 different partners working simultaneously on several milestones. Due to this, it is very crucial to plan the activities well in advance to ensure these achievements happen in a timely manner. This helps to measure the project progress tangibly and also smoothes coordination among the partners.

To ensure efficient and effective planning, the project is divided into 3 different batches:

  • Batch 1 – 27 Public Toilets in Bhubaneswar
  • Batch 2 – 32 Community Toilets in Cuttack
  • Batch 3 – 60 Community Toilets in Bhubaneswar

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CTRAN’s Achievements

CTRAN is the project partner interfacing with the Government and has been instrumental in ensuring smooth progress of the project since its commencement. We have facilitated close liaison with the Government and other project partners, and have been actively involved in all activities from site selection to validation of layouts and designs, tendering process, branding, coordinating exposure visits, and taking feedback from the Government.

In short, CTRAN has been the interfacing tool between Project Sammaan and the Government.

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Tendering Process: Update

The construction vendors are identified through an exhaustive tendering process managed by Feedback Foundation. The tendering process is administered by the local governments and it is supported by the project team. It is important for the project team to understand the documents that need to be submitted along with the approvals required so that the process is completed within project’s timeline.

Feedback Foundation interfaced with the BMC engineering team to obtain more details on the tendering process and to review the tender documents that had already been prepared. They also collaborated with Anagram Architects on incorporating the facility design changes suggested by the engineering team. These efforts help to ensure that the process is completed in a timely manner with all requisite approvals in place.

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Site & Land Approvals

Project Sammaan’s initial pilot phase in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack involves the construction of 100+ separate community and public sanitation facilities. Some of these facilities will replace existing, non-functional toilet blocks on the land these failed facilities currently occupy, whereas others will be built on new land allocated by the municipal corporations for use in the project.

Irrespective of this, every site requires vetting to ensure it complies not only with building codes but also within parameters set by the project itself. In order to arrive at the final list of sites, nearly twice as many proposed areas as will be built on needed to be documented and evaluated.

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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.

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