The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Cell phone surveillance on garbage bins

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Sunday, Jul 04, 2010
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Cell phone surveillance on garbage bins

Special Correspondent

Sanitary supervisors equipped with cell phones to take photos of the garbage being lifted

HYDERABAD: Faced with persistent complaints about non-lifting of garbage from bins located in different colonies in the twin cities, GHMC has begun a novel experiment of keeping a tab on garbage lifting with the help of photographs taken by cell phones.

Sanitary supervisors have been equipped with cell phones to take photos of the garbage being lifted from each bin and send them across to the central server in the head office. The pictorial evidence will help officials to monitor whenever the bin is emptied in a day.

It will not only provide time and day of the photo being sent but location of the bin also can be found out taking the help of google maps. Senior health and sanitation officials explained that the cell phone photo exercise is being taken up on an experimental basis in the circles of eight and nine or areas pertaining to Abids and Khairatabad, respectively.

The department is usually flooded with complaints of overflowing garbage bins, dumper vehicles skipping some points or even ignoring making trips despite entries made in the logbooks and generous amount of diesel is filled in.

Senior officials are hopeful that with cell phones an effective check can be put on several malpractices.

Three agencies – Centre for Good Governance, Blue Frog Technologies and Airtel have been chosen to train the sanitary supervisors and supply the data to the senior officials.

If the idea is found to be successful in ensuring garbage lifting is being done as per schedule, it will be extended to other circles too, added senior officials.

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Andhra Pradesh