Mumbai: The BMC has plans to set up a control room for real time tracking of waste collection vehicles and will help to penalise the contractors for their shoddy work. Currently, the civic solid waste management (SWM) department has vehicle-tracking monitoring systems (VTMS) installed in all its garbage collection vehicles, dumpers and compactors. However, the civic body is yet to set up a dedicated control room to mointor it.
The civic authorities made VTMS mandatory for all its vehicles, including debris, garbage, silt dumping vehicles and water tankers in 2018. The decision was taken after the nullah-desilting scam was exposed in 2015. The tracking and monitoring system was extended to all vehicles to ensure that civic officials could track activities and prevent malpractices. At present, though the department has VTMS devices installed in their vehicles, there is no effective monitoring and record keeping.
“We want to upgrade the system with a dedicated team to mointor these vehicles in real time and create a database. We are planning to set up a control room at BMC’s Grant Road office or at Worli garage. It will have a video wall along with other equipment wherein the feed will be monitored by civic staff in three shifts. This control room will allow us to maintain a detailed record. It will allow us to implement stringent provisions on contactors with poor performance,” said a senior civic official.
The advanced VTMS will keep track of whether a vehicle has skipped picking garbage from some bins, changed the route without notice, or if it is being driven rashly. It will also help to keep records of the daily collection of garbage from the city. Currently, around 6,500 metric tons of solid waste is produced in the city. The amount of garbage increases during the monsoon, said a civic official. The SWM department has 1,300 vehicles of their own while 1,500 vehicles are hired from contractors. Both the vehicles have devices installed on them.
