IE : Outsourcing: 3 yrs later, Navi Mumbai corpn is smiling :Oct 3 , 2007
Outsourcing: 3 yrs later, Navi Mumbai corpn is smiling
17 contractors for 17 regions; a monthly saving of Rs 10 lakh and fewer
citizens’ complaints
N GANESH
OCTOBER 2
WHO would have thought, that among all the corporations in the Mumbai
metropolitan region, it would be the one in Navi Mumbai that is now
beginning to reap the benefits of outsourcing.
In 2004, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation signed comprehensive
agreements with 17 contractors for the 17 geographical regions of Navi
Mumbai for operating and maintaining its water supply. While earlier it was
a ratebased contract where several agencies were involved in various aspects
of the supply chain, this time it was a single contractor for each region.
Three years later, now costs have come down and, what’s more, consumer
complaints have reduced drastically. NMMC executive engineer in the water
supply department Sanjay Desai ex- plained how.
First, electricity consump- tion reduced by 7.78 per cent which meant costs
came down by Rs 10 lakh per month. But more than the monetary bene- fit,
what Desai is most pleased about is that consumer com- plaints regarding
water pres- sure reduced by 80 per cent.
“Consumer complaints matter the most,” he said, adding that now the contrac-
tor deals with them. In fact, the contractor is penalised if there are
reports of public grievances not being addressed. “Now, we plan to introduce
an electronic complaint redressal system,” he added.
Since the sole contractor is responsible for all the equipment-motors and
pumpsmaintenance is much better. Also, with less scope for keeping them
idle, machines are being used far more effectively.
“Previously, the machinery was lying idle for want of ad ministrative
sanction for repairs. And this was a time consuming process,” said Desai.
Now, since the contractor is also responsible for leakages, water losses due
to machine problems have come down to 13 per cent from 17 per cent.
In contrast, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which has to make do
with an ancient water supply system, is handling most of the operations and
maintenance work on its own. “Most of the operational and maintenance work
is carried out by our staff. Only repairs that require a lot of manpower are
outsourced through rate contract,” said BMC hydraulic engineer M M Kamble.
Publication : IE; Section : MN; Pg : 1; Date : 3/10/07
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