GHMC signs two MOUs

Hyderabad : The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) on Friday entered into Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) with University of Southern California for academic cooperation and with Lakeer, a Hyderabad based initiative for model ward .

The MOUs were signed in the presence of Municipal Administration Minister K Tarakarama Rao. Principal Secretary Arvind Kumar and other senior officials were present on the occasion.

The first MOU relates to an agreement with the University of Southern California, Los Angeles under which both GHMC and USC have agreed to explore the feasibility of academic cooperation leading to the initiation and development of joint programme which includes research collaboration with GHMC on social issues and issues of public services delivery, compilation of global best practices and share them with GHMC to implement them, sharing of IT technologies, sharing best environmental technologies and facilitate international technologies providers to work in GHMC area, providing video training sessions to GHMC on best management practices, short courses to management officers on social enterprise and management practices and exchange programmes between GHMC staff and students.

The MoU is the first such collaborative agreement signed by a civic body in India and leading global university for intellectual dialogue and cooperation and building a long term sustainable relationship. James G Ellis Dean of USC Marshall School of Business, Anthony R Bailey, Vice President for strategic and global initiatives and Tyrone Callahan Vice Dean were present on the occasion.

The second MoU was signed between GHMC and Lakeer. Lakeer, a Hyderabad based urban initiative is launching the Model Wards Project. The model wards project is a first-of-its-kind initiative to improve quality of life in urban wards in India. The project aims to improve quality of life in 5 wards in GHMC by coming up with solutions to quality of life challenges faced by citizens. These solutions will come from a rigorous data-driven study of the challenges, along with engaging local citizens to participate in making these solutions

The project brings together various bodies under the Municipal department such as GHMC, the HMWSSB the HMDA and the police to work together to share data, gather insights and work on citizen-centric solutions to urban problems. The five wards where the project will run include Jeedimetla (Quthbullapur Circle), Cherlapalli (Kapra Circle) Rajendra Nagar (Rajendra Nagar Circle) Hydernagar (Kukatpally Circle) and Ahmed Nagar (Mehdipatnam Circle).

The project will be divided into three phases. The first phase- spread over 3 months- will involve building “Liveability Maps” or city dashboards for 150 GHMC wards across 42 metrics of quality of life across the city. Some examples of these metrics include like air and water pollution, access to public transport, citizen complaint redressal, street light density, etc. The goal through this phase will be to get a comprehensive data-backed understanding of the city’s quality of life.

Phase 2 will involve engaging citizens across 2 wards to contribute to recommending projects that can improve quality of life, backed by the data found in phase 1. Phase 3 will expand that to three more wards, leaving a blueprint to study that can be used in other wards and cities across Telangana.