Tag: RMC

Gear up for scooter rides at Ranchi Lake.

Source – telegraphindia.com

Water sports buffs, by the end of this year you can try out water scootering, paddle boating and motorboat rides at the iconic Swami Vivekananda Sarovar, popularly known as Bada Talab or Ranchi Lake.

Acting on the order of state urban development principal secretary Ajoy Kumar Singh, Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) directed Chadda and Associates, the architecture consultancy firm, to incorporate the components of water sports in the second phase of renovation of Ranchi Lake. This is to be carried out on 10 acres of Bada Talab near the Nagarmal Modi Seva Sadan Hospital-end.

Ranchi Lake or Bada Talab will be the first reservoir in Jharkhand to have water scooter rides if the plan fructifies.

Bada Talab, spread over 52 acres, was created by a British agent, Colonel Onsely, in 1842 with the help of prisoners to maintain the groundwater level of the city located more than 2,100 feet above sea level.

“Based on the directive of the principal secretary on inclusion of water sports for youths, we have asked private consultants to purchase water scooters, paddle boats and motorboats,” RMC commissioner Manoj Kumar said. “Ideally, we would begin with a pair of each of the water-sport equipment, which would be operated by a private agency and ensure safety of the participants.

“We hope to introduce the facility soon after the completion of the second phase of the renovation plan by the end of 2020,” he added. “We also plan to convert a small patch of island at the centre of the lake into a resting place with chairs and a snack kiosk.”

Chadda and Associates has also been asked to incorporate a kids’ play zone with swings and simple gaming activities and playstations.

An open-air theatre with live band performances, on the lines of the ones Rock Garden in Kanke, is also on cards.

The lake would have a sewage treatment plant (STP) and treatment of wastewater through bio-remediation.

“The consultant has been asked to submit a fresh detailed project report incorporating the new suggestions including setting up of STP within a week. After getting the report we will be getting it sanctioned by the department. As soon as we get an official nod, we will start the process of issuing a tender for the renovation work,” said a senior official in RMC engineering wing.

The cost of renovation is pegged at over Rs 14 crore after inclusion of the new suggestions. The plan already had the proposal for landscaping, benches and tensile structures, and a cafeteria.

The first phase of the beautification and conservation of the lake began in May 2017. Two bridges — one 20m long and 6m wide linking the main entrance with Island-1 of the lake, the other 200m long and 6m wide connecting Island-1 with Island-2 — were built then. This apart, lighting, fountains, pathways and sewage treatment plants were done in the first phase of renovation. This was pegged at Rs 13 crore.

A 33-foot-high statue of Swami Vivekananda was added to the beautification project taking the cost to Rs 20-crore in June 2017. The statue was opened to the public in January 2019.

Capital roads to bloom, & how.

Source – telegraphindia.com

Potted flowering plants will now line the key arteries and pathways to slums in the capital city as part of the civic body’s efforts to score some brownie points in upcoming pan-India cleanliness survey.

Ranchi deputy municipal commissioner Shankar Yadav on Thursday said the civic body had held initial talks with nursery owners and floriculturists in the city and work would begin next week.

“We had a meeting with nursery owners and floriculturists earlier this week. They have agreed to our proposal of putting up potted flowering plants on approach roads to urban slums, along key stretches and public places as part of the beautification of the city,” Yadav said.

Sources in Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) said the move was aimed at scoring additional points during field verification as part of Swachh Survekshan 2020.

“The flowering plants will not only add to the beauty of the city roads, parking lots and commercial areas but also enhance the beauty of approach points to urban slums, which are often littered with cow dung. This will not leave a good impression on the teams of external assessors who will be coming for field survey after January 15,” said a source in the RMC’s sanitation team.

Around 20 nursery owners and floriculturists have agreed to the RMC proposal and more are expected to come on board in the next few days.

“We will hold meeting with more nursery owners and floriculturists on Saturday. We will give planters the option to select the patch that they would like to adopt for putting up potted flowering plants. The planters will not only provide the plants in pots, but also take of their maintenance,” RMC city manager Rupesh Ranjan said.

Though the RMC had left the selection of flowers to the nursery owners, sources said civic body officials had suggested flowers that were vibrant in colour and required less maintenance.

“The nursery owners only need to look after the plants. We will arrange water to spray on the saplings. Some sites, which have been selected after consultation with nursery owners, include the stretch between Jail Mor to Lalpur and the approach roads to Bandhgadi and Gangu Toli,” Rupesh Ranjan.

Similar potted plants will be kept in selected patches across all the wards in Ranchi depending on the interest shown by the nursery owners, he added.

Ranchi water bodies to get monthly care.

Source – telegraphindia.com

The water bodies of Ranchi will be cleaned every month, the civic body has decided.

Taking lessons from the difficulties in cleaning water bodies during festivals, Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has issued a directive for monthly cleaning instead of the existing norm of cleaning the more than 40 water bodies in the 53 wards only during Durga Puja and Chhath, once a year.

“We have issued directive to all the ward supervisors to ensure that cleaning of the water bodies undertaken prior to Chhath earlier this month is maintained,” said RMC commissioner Manoj Kumar. “The ward supervisor has to arrange for cleaning of water hyacinth and garbage on a regular basis every month and submit report. The councillor (elected representative) of the specific ward has also been requested to monitor that the cleaning is done satisfactorily and any issues should be raised promptly with the RMC’s health officials.”

The RMC had to face difficulties in cleaning water hyacinth and garbage from the major water bodies prior to Chhath this year due to rains and after a lot of efforts the lakes were cleared of garbage and the green growth.

As per the directive issued on Thursday, ward supervisors would take help of safai (cleanliness) workers in cleaning the water bodies every month and if the cleaning requires more effort they can repeat the cleaning every fortnight.

“The decision was taken after difficulties in pooling in huge number of workers and tractors to clean the water bodies of puja paraphernalia, garbage and water hyacinth from the water bodies with very few days left for the festivals and we had to literally work day and night. Now regular cleaning will make our task easier and we have to clean only puja paraphernalia after festivals,” an RMC official said.

Some of the major water bodies include Bada Talab, Tetartoli pond, Jail Talab, Chadhri pond, Button Talab, Hatania Talab, Kanke Lake etc.

The RMC is also planning to set up specific points near the lakes where puja paraphernalia would be thrown instead of being chucked in the lake.

“This will be known as visarjan kund near the water bodies. It would be specially barricaded points near the water bodies where devotees can drop puja paraphernalia before immersion of idols in the lake. We will be putting up notice boards informing people about these specific spots so that the entire water bodies are not polluted,” said RMC health officer Kiran Kumari.

The civic body also plans to hire a private agency for mechanised dredging and cleaning of water hyacinth from big water bodies.

“We will be hiring a private agency for clearing water hyacinth and dredging of the big water bodies as it is very difficult to remove water hyacinth from the water bodies manually. The selection process will take place after the assembly polls,” said RMC CEO Manoj Kumar.

Chhath tale of Ranchi and Jamshedpur.

Source – telegraphindia.com

Civic bodies in both Ranchi and Jamshedpur are racing against time to deck up the ghats ahead of the four-day Chhath that begins from Thursday with Nahay Khay.

While heavy rains of last week and subsequent immersion of Kali and Chitragupta idols have increased the workload of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC), the steel city is comparatively better placed with most major ghats in the final stages of being spruced up for the biggest festival of Jharkhand and Bihar.

“We have deputed our enforcement teams at major ghats to prevent dumping of puja paraphernalia,” RMC CEO Manoj Kumar said on Wednesday. “We are planning to depute guards at night from today at the major ghats. We are working against time to prepare the ghats as heavy rains, garbage-choked drains and dumping of idols and puja paraphernalia have compounded our problems. Despite the odds we are trying to prepare the ghats in the best possible manner for the devotees by Saturday,” he said.

Saturday is Pehli Arghya, when devotees offer prayers to the setting sun while standing in water.

Ranchi has nearly 60 ghats where devotees offer prayers to the sun god during Chhath. Some of the major ponds are Bada Talab, Karamtoli Talab, Line Tank Talab, Jail Mor Talab, Batan Talab, Hatania Talab and Kanke Lake.

“We are trying our best to clear the Ranchi Bada Talab of massive growth of water hyacinth,” Kumar said. “We have pressed into service nearly 15 heavy vehicles and 150 workers to clear the water hyacinth ahead of the festivity. Similarly, workers have been deputed to clean the other major ponds on a war footing under the supervision of specially constituted 10-member team of senior officials. We have appealed to all the (53) ward councillors to spread the message for cooperation in cleaning the ghats.”

The RMC will also be putting up bamboo made structures to demarcate danger zones at the ponds by Saturday morning, said an RMC health division official.

The roughly 30 ghats on the Subernarekha and Kharkai rivers and ponds across the steel city are a tad better prepared.

“We are taking help of (Tata Steel subsidiary) Jusco and other corporate groups (which maintain ponds in their areas) and also employing our resources to clean the ghats,” said Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee (JNAC) city manager Sonal Singh. “We had done the cleaning of the ghats completely after Durga Puja. However, after Kali Puja and Lakshmi Puja, puja paraphernalia and idols had to be cleaned again from the ghats which we are continuing till today (Wednesday). We hope to clean all the ghats by this evening.”

The JNAC will also install facilities such as changing rooms and mobile toilets at the major ghats. “Corporate groups and Jusco will be putting up lights at the major ghats. The approach roads to the ghats have been levelled,” Sonal Singh added.

Danger spots at the ghats will be demarcated with red and white tapes by Saturday morning.

Coal town ready

Dhanbad Municipal Corporation has completed clean-up operations at almost all the 90 ponds of the coal town except the historic Raja Talab of Jharia and Khokhan Talab of Hirapur.

Dhanbad mayor Chandrashekhar Agarwal, who inspected Raja Talab on Wednesday afternoon, said: “We faced some problem due to huge amount of hyacinth in the pond, but we will hopefully make it ready for Chhath by tomorrow (Thursday).”

Open drain kills girl in Ranchi shocker

Source: telegraphindia.com

A four-year-old girl fell into an open, waterlogged drain barely 100 metres from her home in Hindpiri to be fatally swept away on Wednesday afternoon, her family blaming the Ranchi Municipal Corporation’s callousness for her death.

The girl, Falak, a close neighbour of RMC ward 23 councillor Sajda Khatoon at Nala Road in Hindpiri, was on her way to attend her tuition class when she slipped and fell into the arterial drain around 1.30pm.

Though dozens of bystanders jumped in to rescue her, she could not be found.

Four hours later, her body was recovered 5km away from the Subernarekha river in Chutia, where the drain flows into the river.

The killer drain, which channels dirty water of Hindpiri, Main Road and other adjoining localities, lacks every basic safety feature despite being situated in the heart of a so-called Smart City.

A bystander said that Falak had stopped to buy chocolates at a neighbourhood shop near the drain, which had neither any cover not barrier at that stretch, when she seemed to take a misstep and fell into the dirty water.

“I was right there, talking on my cellphone, so were many others. We rushed to the spot. I could clutch her schoolbag but could not save her, the currents of the drain water were so strong that she was gone,” a shocked Md Kasib told this paper.

Falak lived with her parents and younger sister Alia, who is 2 years old.

Her uncle Md Arshad said they could not believe a child could die so easily because of the city’s poor drainage system. “My niece became a victim of Ranchi Municipal Corporation’s carelessness. For hours we frantically searched for her across the stretch of the drain, all the way to Kadru. Finally her body was found stuck in garbage in the Subernarekha river,” said Arshad.

Ranchi Main Road from Ekra Masjid forks right to the narrow and potholed Nala Road with the uncovered drain.

“RMC built the drain but did not bother to cover it. At some places, people pooled in their own money and to put covers. The road has no flank. Not a single day passes when people and bikers fall in the drain,” said Md Imran.

“It gets dangerous in monsoon as the drain becomes a swollen river.”

He added that ward councillor Khatoon wasn’t bothered. “We have demanded a cover for the drain many times in the past but no one bothered to listen,” said Md Nasim, another resident.

Khatoon did not respond to phone calls when The Telegraph tried to contact her.

Ranchi deputy mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargiya, who visited the locality around 3pm when Falak’s body was still missing, promised to get the open drain covered with concrete slabs, but did not give a deadline.

“This was a tragic incident. The drain has many criss-crosses. Apparently, the child was washed away towards Guru Nanak School. I will call a meeting of the RMC on open drains,” said Vijayvargiya.

Part of Jharkhand’s biggest dump yard to turn eco-park soon

Source: hindustantimes.com

Think of an eco-friendly park on a pile of garbage giving breather to people living in and around the area.

This imagination will soon turn into reality at Ranchi’s Jhiri, one of the biggest dump yard in Jharkhand, spread across 41 acres of land where more than 600 tonnes of garbage is dumped every day since past two decades.

The board of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has approved the proposal of an eco-park on a portion of the dump yard with an aim to reduce environmental hazard to people living nearby, clear dumping land and improve soil quality which has deteriorated drastically. RMC executive engineer Umeshwar Nath Tiwary said a detailed project report (DPR) in this regard was being prepared by a private agency. “The concept is to accumulate garbage spread across 41 acres of land in three to four acres through capping work and develop a park on it,” he said, adding, “Grass would be sown, varieties of flowers and trees suitable for such land would be planted there.”

Tiwary said the project would help improve the environment of the locality by reducing garbage pollution, prevent water and soil pollution, besides, it would help to reclaim large portion of the dumping site for scientific solid waste management.

It was a brainchild of Ranchi deputy mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargiya who said that he saw such eco-park in Chennai. “It gave me an idea to develop a similar park in Ranchi’s Jhiri under green project initiative. It will give a breather to people living nearby,” Vijayvargiya said.

A stinking kitchen dustbin can unsettle one’s day. Imagine living in Anand Nagar, a colony of 200 families near Jhiri, that has to cope with over 20 lakh tonnes of garbage accumulated in past two decades.

Most residents of the colony are forced to live inside mosquito nets even in day time. “Flies make our lives miserable during the day while mosquitoes at night. We cannot eat in the open because of the flies,” said Lalti Devi (35).

“Since there is no waste recycling process here, flies and mosquitoes menace have increased seriously,” she said. A large number of residents are now planning to shift to other places after selling their properties.

A recent study conducted by the environment experts of Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, found unscientific garbage dumping turning the soils in and around Jhiri poisonous spreading cancerous agents. The environment experts have found concentration of heavy metals like Chromium, Copper and Zinc in the soil.

Kirti Avishek, assistant professor at department of civil and environmental engineering at BIT, said, “Any vegetable or plant uptake the nutrition from the top soil. It means vegetable or any plant will absorb the heavy metals. When we eat such vegetables, it will enter our body, which could lead to several health hazards including cancer.”

RMC had hired two agencies — A2Z in 2011 and Essel Infra in 2015 — to collect and dispose city’s garbage and set up a waste processing plant at Jhiri for making fertilizers, eco-bricks and electricity out of the dumped garbage. However, RMC terminated both the companies for allegedly falling on their given tasks.

Ranchi ‘Smart City’ locality with mud roads and no drains

Source: telegraphindia.com

Over 1,000 residents of Jagatpuram, a new settlement on a flank of Kanke Road (Ranchi-Patratu Road) less than 5km from the chief minister’s residence, are forced to live without concrete roads and drainage.

A seven-minute drive from the CM’s residence, Jagatpuram mocks the tall claims of the central and state governments of working towards making Ranchi a Smart City.

The locality, which grew virtually from farmland in the past four years owing to the capital’s rapid urbanisation, now has around 200 households. Some of these are opulently built.

But, the first heavy hours have bared the non-existent civic facilities in the area that falls under Ward 1 of Ranchi Municipal Corporation.

The locality has only one cemented road, 200 feet of it, in a part of the colony built with Ranchi Zilla Parishad funds. The mud roads turn slushy streams. The low-lying area is virtually marooned.

Ramanand Raman, who lives here and works at a private pathological laboratory, said he was already regretting having bought land here for his house. “I purchased land here six months ago, I’m already repenting my decision. It rains, and everyone is trapped at home, children can’t go to school, there’s no road to walk on,” Raman said.

Another resident Pramod Kumar said it was a relatively new settlement, not more than four years old.

“Many influential persons bought land here, you can see their palatial buildings. In another season, it may even look like a posh locality. But on the ground, and in monsoon specially, things are a mess because we don’t have proper roads and drainage. These are basics,” he said.

He added that as the bulk of the area was flooded or slushy, sanitation workers had stopped coming. “Imagine, we have to dump garbage here and there. Perfect conditions for mosquitoes to breed,” he added.

Contacted, Ranchi deputy mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargiya admitted to the problem at Jagatpuram. “RMC is aware of the road and drainage problems there and has prepared a detailed project report worth Rs 5 crore to address them. Work will be done in phases. In the first phase, a Rs 1.5 crore road will be built, for which the tender will be floated very soon,” he said.

Even Ranchi Municipal Corporation is fed up with dug-up spots

Source: telegraphindia.com

Traffic snarls and people falling into dug-up stretches of roads — welcome to monsoon in the state capital.

The situation has become so bad that senior officials of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) are set to meet Ramchandra Sahis, the minister of drinking water and sanitation, to lodge complaints about the number of trenches dug by the department across the capital for repairing water pipelines and giving domestic water connections.

“In the last one-and-half months we have received over two dozen complaints from residents that trenches were dug on the road and on the flanks many months back by the department that are yet to be filled up,” deputy mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargiya said on Monday.

“This causes multiple problems like disruption in traffic and people falling in the trenches. The RMC has to face public criticism irrespective of the fact that the drinking water and sanitation department is responsible for this. The RMC is not responsible if the drinking water department does not have sufficient funds or if officials have no control over contractors. Now we have decided to meet minister of the department to seek his intervention.”

Vijayvargiya, a resident of Kokar, said that on Kokar Chowk the road was dug up three months back. The department has finally covered the trenches with cement slabs. “But debris is yet to be removed and proper levelling work has still not been done. You can see a similar situation on the Kantatoli stretch. Due to such unplanned work, traffic remains affected and people face problems,” he said.

Rakesh Raman, a resident of Bandhgadi, complained that stretch was dug in one of the lanes of his locality a month ago.

“This lane is narrow and has no streetlight, hence people frequently fall in it. I had lodged a complaint with the RMC but there has been no solution so far,” said Raman.

Morabadi resident Vimal Krishnan said contractors executing the works leave the dug-up portions unattended. “As per the rule such stretches must be barricaded with reflective danger sign till the work is finished. But in Ranchi such procedures are not followed. There is risk of accident especially at night for those who are not aware,” Krishnan said.

Hiralal Prasad, chief engineer of the drinking water and sanitation department, admitted that such complaints have come from various parts of the capital.

“These trenches were dug up mainly for repair and to give domestic connections. But they must be filled up after the work is done. During periodical review meetings contractors were asked to properly fill the dug-up stretches with soil. We are going to issue a final warning to all contractors after which departmental action will be taken against them,” Prasad said when contacted.


Smart buckets for Ranchi garbage solution

Source: telegraphindia.com

The civic body in the capital will be using RFID-tagged buckets for door-to-door garbage collection to ensure better monitoring of the process and to plug some of the shortcomings that include sanitation workers skipping homes during their rounds.

“At the moment door-to-door waste collection is not that effective. There are complaints that either our staff don’t visit all houses or that households do not deposit waste at the collection points. This prompted us to think about RFID-tagged buckets for household waste collection,” Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) CEO Manoj Kumar said.

RFID stands for “radio-frequency identification” and refers to a technology whereby digital data encoded in RFID tags, or smart labels, are captured by a reader via radio waves. RFID is similar to barcoding in that data from a tag or label are captured by a device that stores the data in a database.

But according to American Barcode and RFID (AB&R), a firm with expertise in the technology, one of the more significant advantages of RFID over barcoding is that RFID tag data can be read outside the line-of-sight, whereas barcodes must be aligned with an optical scanner.

In Ranchi, that generates nearly 700 MT of municipal solid waste daily from 53 wards, RMC waste collection vans visit lanes and play jingles using a PA system to ask residents to deposit waste in bins installed in the vans.

“At the moment there is no monitoring to see whether the staff visit each and every lane in a locality. With the introduction of RFID-tagged bins we will be able to monitor when the bins are being filled and at what time they are emptied. This would give us an idea about the visit of our staff and also enable segregation of waste at source as there will be two differently coloured bins for dry and wet waste,” Kumar explained.

RMC staff, he said, would scan the QR code with a reader, record the data, including quantum of collection, date and time of collection on a daily basis. These would be recorded at a command control centre.

RFID tags would also be installed on compactors and vehicles to alert staff when these are filled.

“The bins and vehicles can be emptied and cleaned immediately which will prevent garbage spilling on to roads as is often the case,” he added.

Kumar said RMC had asked Bangalore waste management consultant InfraEn to submit a detailed project report by July. “After that we will get the project sanctioned from the department and start the tender process,” he added.

RMC sources said that efforts were on to complete the tender process and issue a work order to a selected agency during the monsoon.

“We want to complete the tender process and issue a work order by October so that waste collection using RFID-tagged bins can start before implementation of the model code of conduct as Assembly elections are in due the state,” said a senior official who added that RMC would like to start the process in phases.

“It will not be feasible to purchase such a huge number of RFID-tagged buckets for Ranchi that has nearly 2.5 lakh households. Hence, we will start in phases, taking up a limited number of wards one by one,” he added.

Private firm axed; civic body plans daily inspection, verification calls

Source: telegraphindia.com

Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) has worked out an elaborate plan to keep the capital clean, including daily inspections by senior officials and random verification calls to residents, now that the private firm hired to take care of garbage collection in a large section of the city has been sacked for poor services.

Among the other measures RMC plans to introduce are increasing the frequency of garbage collection and extending the doorstep collection facility to all 53 wards of Ranchi. “We want senior RMC officials to do the round of at least two-three wards everyday to check cleanliness,” said CEO of RMC Manoj Kumar.

“The officers will have to visit at least two-three wards every morning before reaching office. They will have to submit reports every 48 hours to ensure that workers carry out their duties diligently. We had issued a directive to this effect on Tuesday. We will also track garbage collection vehicles through GPS to ensure that waste collection vans comply with the set route chart,” he explained.

The private firm, Essel Infra, was supposed to undertake waste collection, transportation and its management in 33 of the 53 wards of the city. RMC was taking care of the remaining 20 wards. But after repeated complaints for residents of shoddy services, it was decided to terminate Essel Infra’s contract.

“Despite repeated reminders, the company failed to fulfil the terms of its contract. We had decided to terminate the contract in March, and after a cabinet nod earlier this month, we handed over the termination letter yesterday (Tuesday),” Kumar said, admitting that it would take the RMC some time to streamline its efforts.

Capital Ranchi generates nearly 700 tonnes of waste daily and its disposal is a challenge with residents regularly complaining of irregular door-to-door collection. Despite all efforts, RMC has barely been able to streamline garbage collection and disposal even after hiring a private firm. Now, it will have to take full charge of the capital’s cleanliness.

Kumar said as per the contract with Essel Infra, RMC started taking over the firm’s assets from Wednesday. The assets include manpower and various machinery (see box).

“As per our assessment, there is no problem in terms of manpower. There are some issues in terms of repairing vehicles which will be done soon,” Kumar said.

He said the daily monitoring by officials would take place, ideally, between 7am and 10 am.

“In any case, supervisors were responsible for verifying cleaning work. And now with senior officials monitoring the work every morning, they will be more diligent. Each senior official, including city managers, will be given a list of drains to ensure they are cleaned. They will also ensure that garbage vats are cleared regularly,” added Kumar.

This apart, RMC would make random telephone calls to residents to check the status of their area.

“We got contact numbers of residents during a survey carried out by students of Ranchi University. Calls would go out from the RMC control room. Any complaint would be dealt with immediately and workers and supervisors, if they are to blame, would be taken to task,” he said.

Also, Kumar added, that the frequency of waste collection would be increased. “Currently, collection is being done in the morning and evening. This will be increased to three to four times a day based on the needs of an area,” he explained.

RMC is also planning to float tenders to select separate agencies for door-to-door waste collection, transportation of waste to collection centres and processing of waste at the Jhiri dump. “We plan to complete the tender process by July so that work on the ground level begins by August-September,” said a senior RMC official.