The Hindu              15.05.2013

KMC to go hi-tech to keep a tab on civic works

JNTUK develops Works Monitoring System to improve transparency.

In a city with 50 municipal divisions and various
development works progress, it is a tedious task for the civic
authorities to keep a tab constantly on the status of the works and
their progress. It is also difficult to hold someone responsible for the
delay in completion of the task and for the poor quality of works in
the bureaucratic setup. To address this issue, a team of technocrats
from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Kakinada (JNTUK) has
come out with a software titled ‘Works Monitoring System’ that enables
the higher authorities to know the status of various works and to take
action against the persons concerned just by making a few clicks on the
keyboard.

The Kakinada Municipal Corporation (KMC) is
taking up various works such as laying of cement concrete roads and
drains, construction of buildings for schools, health centres and
anganwadis and taking up repairs to the existing assets on a regular
basis. The works will be done through civil contractors and the
engineering staff of the civic body has to monitor the works
periodically and pass the bills.

Inordinate delay

However,
it is found that there is an inordinate delay in completion of certain
works, poor quality in many works and passing of bills in advance for
some projects. As a good number of works are going on simultaneously in
various parts of the city, it is proved to be a difficult to depend on
manual inspections alone.

In a bid to find a solution
to this problem, Municipal Commissioner V. Ravi Kumar has sought the
help of J.V.R. Murthy, Director of the Centre of Excellence e-Resources
Development and Deployment of the JNTUK. Dr. Murthy and his team have
already developed ‘Jana Mytri’ software for the police, which is now
being implemented at the State-level.

“The exclusive
software for the Municipal Corporation provides an opportunity to record
the entire process of works from the tender-level to the final billing
stage. It is easy to hold the individuals responsible for any delay or
poor quality of output, as the employee and position identifications are
given separately,” explains Dr. Murthy.

The
procedure ensures transparency in the transactions and quality in the
works, he says. The new system is expected to be launched very soon, as
the civic authorities are waiting for a formal nod from the higher-ups.