Brihanmumbai Municipal Organization (BMC) plans to launch a digital map of civic amenities of 17 departments; including streets, flame, stormwater drains, building proposals and health, based on the geographical information system. Within the next 15 days, you will get civic amenities such as underground pipelines network and nearby flames hydrants, sewage lines and land reservations over a mobile app.

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When a developer takes up building work, they will be notified about the prevailing pipeline network to avoid damages. Furthermore, the facts of the distance till pipelines will be accessible, that will help during trenching of roads. Civic representatives said the system will help open fire officers during emergencies as they can identify the nearest fireplace hydrants. “We will expose mobile software wherein all the data will be available. Officials will have the information about the complete ward and represent the status of civic amenities. Most of the data has been mapped by officers in the ward and we will just add it to the system soon,” said an official.

The BMC programs to publish data on the ongoing work in the next phase of the project. Under the plan, officials can see the complete details of every property and its pending arrears in property taxes. Booking of land under the development plan too can be seen.  A senior civic official said, “The earmarking of the land will be according to the development plan for 1991 and 2014. Ward representatives can identify illegal constructions in their ward through the app. They have to keep upgrading the machine after routine sessions.”

The goal is to reduce the number of applications for queries under Right to Information Act, as all data will be available on the machine. An official said, “We are still deciding within the limit of access to data which will be given to the residents. However, the application provides down the amount of RTI queries by 50-70%.”

Source- Hindustan Times