Next time you spot a pile of garbage, click a picture from your Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled smartphone and upload it on the BBMP website, triggering an instant alert message to the engineer concerned and remedial action.
The Off-Site Real-Time (OSRT) system, launched by the Palike here on Tuesday, makes this possible on a pilot basis at JP Nagar, Shakambarinagar, Pattabhiramnagar and Byrasandra.
This mobile phone-based info-tech initiative blends GPS and the General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) facilities (used for data connection) to upload photographs. The uploaded photograph will have the stamp of latitude and longitude of the place, which is then superimposed on a Google Map layer. These images are then instantly transferred to the Palike’s central server. This makes the images and location immediately available in the public domain for citizen monitoring and remedial action. The real-time images could be of a sanitary situation, secondary dumping stations or transfer points or public sites under inspection.
Once the photograph gets uploaded on the website, an alert message goes to authorities concerned. The first alert goes to the junior level engineers and if they fail to attend to it in an hour, then it goes to the executive engineer (EE) of the respective division.
If the EE too fails to respond within three hours then it goes to the superintending engineer and the chief engineer of the zone. If they also fail to attend to the complaint, then an alert will go to the zonal level commissioners at the end of the day.
The interesting aspect of the mechanism is that the citizens can also watch the garbage situation in the City. The civic body spent merely Rs 70,000 on the project, which enables the BBMP administration to keep track on the garbage situation in the City on a real-time basis.
Jayanagar MLA B N Vijay Kumar inaugurated the system by clicking the photograph of a dumping place at the 4th Block Shopping Complex and uploaded it on the BBMP's website. He said the new mechanism adopted by the BBMP would help the City look clean.
Later, Dr K V Trilok Chandra, Additional Commissioner, BBMP South Zone, told reporters, “All that people require to do is click photo and upload it on our website and we will track the place and clear the garbage from there.”
Dr Chandra said this mechanism can be used for other purposes as well, such as park maintenance, building plan violations and encroachment of Palike properties.