Say it would affect supervision activities and encourage road engineers to operate mainly from their offices, since information can be accessed online
The BMC’s tech-savvy plan to monitor roadwork in the city has received flak from corporators. The new technology, which was introduced 15 days ago, enables those involved in the project to observe the work in progress from the comfort of their offices itself.
The tracking systems allow officials to review the work on the roads by just logging on to their computers which have the software installed. File pic
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Corporators fear that this new move by BMC officials will affect the supervision activities and encourage road engineers to operate mainly from their offices, as they would have easy access to the progress reports online.
The BMC has started live monitoring of the work done on the roads by contractors. In their contracts, they have compulsorily included a clause of installing GPS tracking chips that can be located via satellite, to keep a check on the movement of contractors’ vehicles and the distance they have travelled.
If the work requires the use of a roadroller or a JCB machine at a particular place at a given time, then the BMC officials can track the vehicle from their offices. The Trenches Tracking System introduced by the BMC, which is similar to the Pothole Tracking System, also has also not gone down well with the corporators. The Trenches Tracking System would require uploading of images of the trenches, and monitoring the status of the work online.
This information would also be accessible to citizens as well. However, there are times when the status of the work has not been updated and the images would still show a puddle of water near the trenches, even if the work has progressed. Also, the images are to be uploaded on the same space as the Pothole Tracking System.
Devendra Amberkar, leader of the opposition in the BMC, said, “With this, supervision work has reduced, as no supervision is being done on the roadwork. This would create problems during monsoon, as the roads would not developed properly due to lack of monitoring.
The Trenches Tracking System will hardly be of any help as the images have to be uploaded onto the Pothole Tracking System. This will confuse the citizens.” SVR Srinivas, Additional Municipal Commissioner, said, “This is new development would help us review the work on the roads by just logging on to the computers that have this software installed. The Trenches Tracking System too will help us track the work on the trenches and not confuse anybody.”
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