The Waiting Game

Project Sammaan is currently in a state of limbo with decisions still pending on nominating a contractor to construct the facilities in both Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. After several failed attempts at publicly tendering the facility construction, reports were issued by both the BMC and CMC to senior officials at the Housing & Urban Development Department supporting the nomination of a Public Sector Unit (PSU) as contractor.

The decision to nominate a PSU received the full support of the project team and, since late July, the reports have been subject to review by various members of the H&UD, Public Health, and Finance Departments. Unfortunately, the project team does not have a window into the processes involved in these reviews, nor a clear understanding of timelines for the reviews to happen. The team has been told it could take weeks or even months, but nothing more concrete than that. Given it’s been several weeks already, it’s safe to assume the early estimates on timelines will not be the case.

What’s particularly challenging about this is that there is nothing further that the project team can do to assist the government with their work. We have submitted all documentation necessary and now find ourselves limited to following up and paying courtesy calls in hopes that our constant presence will help expedite the process, even if it’s just to get us off of their backs.

The review of the PSU’s nomination doesn’t only affect the construction of the facilities. There is a great deal of pre-construction work in the communities receiving the Sammaan facilities that needs to be done before construction starts, but can only begin once a contractor is in place and work orders have been issues. A baseline survey needs to be conducted by the research team in order to quantify the impact of the facilities, following which community dialogues need to take place to prepare people for the coming construction; these activities will take upwards of two months. Once the project team’s pre-construction activities are complete, the government will then need to go into the communities to clear the sites and demolish any pre-existing facilities, while also providing temporary toilet facilities for community members to use. This is especially crucial in Cuttack where 29 of the 32 Sammaan facilities will replace existing ones.

This is very much the calm before the storm, as a great deal will need to be done very quickly once construction becomes a reality. The team has prepared a detailed plan-of-action to commence all necessary activities as soon as the PSU is confirmed, assuming that will be the case. In the meantime, the focus is now on meeting with as many government officials as possible to push Sammaan forward, from the city mayors on down to junior engineers; no stone is being left unturned in the pursuit of finally breaking ground and providing facilities to the people in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack’s slums.