Bhubaneswar: An Information Communication Technology (ICT) based APP called ‘Mu City Savior’ has been developed to help citizens in minimising the impact of urban flooding in some vulnerable locations across the city.
The pilot project was taken up involving citizens in Nayapalli and Shatabdi Nagar, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) in partnership with German Development Cooperation (GIZ).
The digital solution has been developed using co-creation methodology by involving citizens of the pilot area.
The digital solution consists of a volunteer app called ‘Mu City Savior’ will allow citizens to report the current status of identified critical points in drains.
The app will collect three kinds of information from citizens – whether there is any garbage in drains, the water level in drains, and the water flow in drains.
This information will go to the analytical system directly, where it will get analyzed along with pre-existing static information such as vulnerability map of the project area, drainage type, capacity, land use type, number of populations staying in the locality.
Based on the information, the analytical system will send a notification to city officials with a priority list on a real-time basis.
Using that list the city officials can act accordingly and keep drains clean to reduce the impact of urban flooding.
The digital solution is ready and being implemented in the project area for testing.
The digital solution will be fully functional by the next monsoon, sources said.