eGov launches Faecal Sludge Management Platform in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: In the first milestone towards the mission ‘ZERO untreated waste in 1000 habitats in 1000 days’, eGov announced the successful launch of the nation’s first, DIGIT powered sanitation platform in the ULBs of Dhenkanal, Berhampur and Balasore in Odisha.  

The platform attempts to bring digital transformation in all the aspects of the FSM service delivery from on-site containment of the faecal waste to its transport, safe treatment, and disposal. At the heart of the platform is the FSM application, which allows citizens to access the service through online mediums, and provide feedback regarding the quality of the service delivered by the local administration. It allows ULB administration to keep a track of the requests raised by the citizens and deliver the service in a timely manner following the predetermined SLAs.

Viraj Tyagi, CEO, eGov Foundation, said,” It’s heartening to see the platform being piloted in Odisha and with this we have achieved the first milestone towards our journey of bringing digital transformation in the sanitation space. This is yet another example of technological innovation at work to address the problems around urban governance and I hope this will go a long way towards delivery of faecal sludge services to citizens in a safe, efficient and sustainable way.”

“Ensuring and enabling citizens access to government services is of prime significance at eGov. We are heartened to witness another example of technological innovation at-work to address the problems in the sanitation space, which is of national priority”, he said.

“I would like to express my gratitude to our partners in this coalition, namely, Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and EY.”

The idea at the heart of the FSM application was conceived at Scaling City Institutions group within CPR, which has a deep understanding of the FSM policy landscape in Odisha and has been working with the Housing and Urban Development Department for the last seven years on sanitation initiatives.  EY is playing the role of the State’s Technical Support Unit (TSU) in the sanitation domain, and has been helping the government operationalize its various initiatives across the ULBs. 

The launch of the FSM application has also been positively received by the Desludging Operators (DSO’s) and the Faecal Sludge Treatment Plant operators in the State, who are hopeful that the platform will help them achieve better capacity utilisations of the existing infrastructure and enable the Self Help Groups (SHGs) in delivering the FSM services in an economically viable manner.