NMC-OCW marching ahead overcoming adversities
Nagpur Municipal Corporation and Orange City Water Pvt. Ltd. has been implementing the ambitious 24×7 Uninterrupted Water Supply Project for the entire city of Nagpur. The aim of the Project is to provide clean, safe and sufficient water supply to each and every household including the urban poor.
The journey of this one-of-a-kind project has been full of challenges and full of achievements.
The Public-Private-Partnership based Water Supply project was a completely new conceptin India when Nagpur Municipal Corporation contemplated implementing it.The administration and the Legislature were equally unaware of the nitty-gritties of the implementation. Still, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation believed in the dream of equitable water supply followed by round the clock supply to each doorstep and went ahead with the commencement of this historic project with a mammoth job at hand.
The Project was designed combining the best of expertise from all the stakeholders including the NMC, the Operator and industry experts. Picking up the world’s best water supply practices and fitting them in to the social context of Nagpur, the road-map of this project took shape. The Central Government funded the project under JnNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) and the private operator came up with the investment on behalf of NMC which established the credibility of the operator and its commitment of fulfilling the dream of the ULB.
The first challenge popped up just when the project was announced. The never before nature of the concept brewed up a lot of misconceptions and fears in the minds of the people, public representatives, media and NGOs.
The PPP arrangement was perceived as a privatization of the water supply and thus, was resisted unequivocally by the aforesaid stakeholders. The NMC and Operator could see the uproar from the people’s perspective and believed that this resistance can be uprooted only and only by providing the right information with facts and figures. With this clarity in mind, a series of meetings with different stakeholders was carried on and various aspects of the Project, the concept and the implementation mechanism were communicated with clarity and transparency. It smoothened the way to an extent that the Project could take off although amidst disbelief of many of the media and Public representatives. The authorities were considerate of the fact that it would take the positive project outcomes to appear for the protest to subside completely.
On 1st March 2012, the project commenced with the lessons learnt from the pilot project implemented in parts of Dharampeth zone since 2008. The Project includes refurbishment of 30% of the water network which is totally dilapidated and 100% of the House Service Connections (HSCs) which are the major contributors to the contamination of the water supply streams. It also included the rehabilitation of major water tanks of the city, technically known as ESRs (Elevated Service Reservoirs), GSRs (Ground Service Reservoirs) and MBRs (master Balancing Reservoirs) and that of one of the 6 Water Treatment Plants, Pench 2, supplying treated water to a major part of the city.
At the core of the project is the refurbishment of pipelines and HSCs. These works include a lot of excavation and traffic hindrances which gave rise to another phase of resistance, this time, mainly by public and public representatives. The Authority and Operator once again resorted to their trusted tool, the awareness programs. The teams met and conducted presentations for Public representatives briefing them of the nature of work, the temporary inconveniences it brought along and the long term benefits they are going to fetch. It worked wonders and the team had most public representatives on-boarded. On the other hand, on-boarding the citizens was a bigger job.
For this, the Operator established a fully dedicated team of more than 40 social work professionals who worked on-field in three stages: before the project work started – creating awareness about the project, during the work – collecting documents and clarifying peoples’ queries and after the work – building a lasting rapport with every community. This can be titled as the most successful step during the entire journey of the project as it started endearing the Project and the Operator to the people in true sense.
There were still many glitches in the way of moving ahead. In the age old working of the water supply system, there were no accurate reference documents or As Built Drawings available for the existing water network underground. The team had to rely on trial and error method in order to catch hold of the existing system. However, NMC-OCW made the most from the available technologies like GIS to map the newly built assets in the system.
It also used SCADA for system monitoring. In addition to these, GPS tracking for tanker movements, 24×7 call center for Complaint management and customer service, indigenously developed ESR cleaning system for improved water quality were some of the initiatives which brought about significant change in the services delivered to the citizens.Photo of water meter on Bill was one more step towards transparency and trust.
Just as things started falling into place on ground, the next challenge struck the Project. The JnNURM was scrappedin 2014and the project was left in financial abyss. The grant receivable from the Government stopped and for a period of more than 2 yrs, the financial uncertainty kept glooming over. It lagged the project behind its set timeline. The NMC extended all the support it could during this time, but it wasn’t enough to bridge the financial gap formed due to the suspension of grant. It severely impacted the pace of the project mainly the HSCs. The state government came to the rescue in 2017 and 2018and provided the financial aid required to push the project back into the desired pace.
Meanwhile, considering all the hindrances the project faced, the timeline for completion of work was extended and with the financial help from the Government and all the timely support from NMC, the project indeed took off with the clear aim of completing the rehabilitation in the newly set timeline.
Today, NMC-OCW are standing tall on the foundation of the results achieved by thoughtful and dedicated efforts put in for all these years. The rehabilitation of the pipelines is completed while the rehabilitation of HSCs is in finishing stage.
As on date more than 19L of city’s population is directly benefitted on various service parameters. 270 areas where there was no water supply receive water now benefitting approx. 2.23lac citizens, 2.13lac citizens from 132 areas where the water supply was alternate day now receive daily water supply. The supply duration and pressure conditions have improved in 428 areas benefitting 7.71lac citizens. 128 areas with 1.16lac citizens are freed of contaminated supply and are now receiving safe water.
It is evident from the authentic data that consumer count has been increased from 2.10L in 2012 to 3.65L today and the amount billed increased from 94cr in 2012 to 145cr today which is a direct benefit to Nagpur Municipal Corporation and the quality of water improved from 88% in 2012 to 97% today which is direct benefit to citizen of Nagpur.
In addition to this, being expert in water industry we have implemented lots of technical & technological advancement in Nagpur which is first in India. List is too long but majorly we have implemented 24*7 call center, trenchless technology, online bill payment/PayTM/PoS, GPS tracking, GIS/SCADA, Indigenous ESR cleaning etc. in this project.
The trust shown by the citizens has enabled NMC-OCW to reach to this milestone today where they are confident of facing any challenge coming their way, may it be external change or internal. NMC-OCW are focused on their commitment of Safe, Clean and Sufficient water to each and every household.
We are aware that similar projects were launched in Aurangabad, Khandwa, etc. which were forced to be scrapped due to many reasons but Nagpur is delivering best services to its citizen which is only possible due to strong willpower of all the stakeholders and consistent result-fetching efforts.
NMC-OCW marching ahead overcoming adversities
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