GANDHINAGAR: In a first of its kind initiative that may become a milestone in India, the Surat Municipal Corporation has decided to start a dedicated consultancy services to provide self-sustainable solutions to different civic bodies for developing robust civic amenities.
Initially, the consultancy services would be for sectors like water use management, solid waste management and road infrastructure development. While talking to Millennium Post, Surat Municipal Commissioner Shalini Agarwal said that Surat has emerged as one of the best development models in the country.
In the coming days, infrastructure development in the sectors of water, bridges and roads is going to play a key role for civic bodies, we initiated the idea of setting up consultancy services to generate some income for the SMC.
“Once rolled out, it would be the first such initiative taken by any civic body in the country as well as in the world. We are also aiming to provide consultancy services to civic bodies worldwide,” she said.
“Be it water use management, solid waste handling, development of basic civic amenities for the residents of the city, city down planning landscape or best practices adopted for energy conservation, the Surat Municipal Corporation has set an example for different civic bodies,” said Agarwal, who is 2005-batch Gujarat cadre IAS officer.
“Representatives and officials of civic bodies from across the country visit the city on regular intervals to get a knack of its development models. Some of our projects are being adopted by other civic bodies too,” she said, adding that there are several projects that have been started by the Surat civic body for the first time and are being implemented very successfully.
“Under the Surat Smart City, we have announced Surat Consultancy Services in the budget. Since Surat is implementing several specialised projects in urban town planning, the objective behind launching consultancy services is to make other civic bodies get benefitted from the best practices of Surat Municipal Corporation,” she said while talking on the sidelines of two-day Urban-20 Mayoral Summit that began in Gandhinagar on Friday.
On the charges of the services, she said: “The consultancy would be chargeable to develop a self-sustainable model. The charges for the services have not yet been decided as the final layout of the plan has not yet been finalised. We are planning to roll out the services in the next two months.”
“We have identified sectors such as sewage water treatment, re-use and recycle of wastewater, tertiary treatment water, drinking water facility, solid waste management, construction of bridges, augmentation of road infrastructure, plastic waste management, etc for providing consultancy services,” Agarwal said, adding that the Centre has also given its nod to go ahead with the consultancy services.