Improved sanitation for Bhubaneswar & Cuttack
During the month of June, J-PAL’s field work in Bhubaneswar focussed on completing the on-going census survey, and identifying additional communities in Bhubaneswar for proposed community sanitation facilities. So far, J-PAL has collected data in close to 80 community locations.
The tendering process for all building works remains the same whether it is roads, railways, or sanitation; the simple objective is to construct the infrastructure or facilities by a contractor.
As Project Management Consultants, Arkitechno evaluates the capabilities of the contractor and then supervises the work along with quality control, check-in measurements and payment certification.
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.
A significant communications-related milestone has been reached by Project Sammaan: it’s being featured on the global sanitation forum SuSanA! This is obviously a very exciting development and one that will increase the project’s footprint exponentially. It also puts our project in very good company.
Ostensibly, The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA) is a network of organizations working in sustainable sanitation. Formed in 2007, its purpose is to act as a forum for those working in the sanitation to share their work while promoting awareness and, hopefully, fostering collaboration amongst members and other interested parties.
Anagram Architects comprises the architectural design team of Project Samman and, as such, is responsible for providing detailed architectural designs for both Public and Community toilets in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar. Our role involves understanding the existing sanitation scenario in the two cities and providing innovative design solutions to reduce the prevalent practice of open-defecation.
For this, initial site visits were made to understand the user preferences and reasons behind the failure of existing toilet designs. This was followed by a series of workshops, which helped in evolving a preliminary design framework.
A significant part of funds for toilet construction in Project Sammaan comes from the government. This entails following a transparent, and government-approved, selection process (a.k.a tendering) for the identification of contractors who will build the Project Sammaan toilets. The selection process should be legally tenable and will be subjected to public scrutiny. Any mishandling of this process will have serious implications on the project timelines and can put the entire project at standstill. Thus it is incumbent on Project Sammaan to ensure that the entire tendering process is handled with care.
Having understood the importance of tendering, the team brought in professional firms to handle the entire tendering process: Feedback Foundation handled the tendering for 27 public toilets in Bhubaneswar and Arkitechno will handle the tendering for 92 community toilets in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.
The sanitation crisis in Odisha is one of the worst in the country, with a vast majority of the population underserved by existing infrastructure (India Water Portal). The problem continues to escalate, with an influx of people moving in from nearby towns and villages adding to the populations density, particularly in slums, further exacerbating the problem of poor sanitation infrastructure.
An increasing population density means increased pressures on the existing infrastructure. As the number of people accessing the existing infrastructure grows, it becomes a litmus test for the quality of the sanitation services being provided by the local governments, bringing to light the primary stresses and failing points of current sanitation solutions.
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:
Project Sammaan has been going full-steam ahead for well over a year now. Several posts have been written over the last few months detailing the many challenges that have been faced thus far, so we thought it pertinent to review the achievements that the team is most proud of.
1. Facility design features were finalized.
After months of internal deliberations and community engagement exercises, the design features of the facilities were agreed upon, thereby allowing the individual facility designs to proceed. This is the first, most critical, component of the design process and one that seeks to shift the Potty Project findings from the conceptual phase and into practice.
May was yet another very busy month for the communications team, with blog activity crescendoing, the Vox Populi video completed, work continuing on the Technical & Design Guidelines document, and, most importantly, Project Sammaan being added to SuSanA, the online sustainable sanitation alliance forum.
As the overall project activities continue increasing, the blog has seen an influx in participation from all partners. Abstract posts about the state of sanitation in India joined those on public relations, branding, project management, and community census activities, making the month of May one of the most diverse in terms of features. These posts present a good snapshot of the wide range of touch-points for Project Sammaan and reinforce its uniqueness in the sanitation sector.