The project initiated by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) years ago, to assign unique identification numbers for all properties in place of existing house numbers, has not inched forward even after several starts.
Named ‘Unique Smart Addressing Solutions for Urban Dwellings’ and publicised as ‘digital door numbering’, the proposal has been expanded much in scope but not in execution.
Though a fresh committee was formed three months ago to finalise modalities for carrying out the project, and asked to submit its report by October end, not much has been done so far. Officials blame unforeseen delays such as municipal elections for the same.
Initially mooted after formation of GHMC in 2007 as a simple solution for streamlining the door numbers in the city, the project’s scope was later expanded to geo-tagging of properties by unique numbers, and linking them with town planning and sanitation wings and for computation of property tax, officials informed.
A pilot project was reportedly launched in 2010 at Bagh Lingampally for digital door numbering, but it failed to take off due to various reasons. It was relaunched in 2015, and carried out in Domalguda and Gaganmahal areas. However, the numbers assigned are rarely used for any purpose, let alone finding addresses, officials shared.
“As of now, the house numbers are allotted randomly, merely by adding to the adjacent house numbers. The project was initiated to create a uniform addressing system using geo-spatial and cloud computing technologies,” an official, who is part of the committee, informed.
The existing numbering was done way back in 1986, when the municipal wards were reconstituted. Ward numbers were used as markers in every house number allotted, which alone had some semblance of chronology associated with them.
Post the recent pilot project, a committee was formed and tenders were called for to replicate the model across the city. However, it had failed to evoke any response from bidders, hence the project was shelved, sources said.
The present committee, with CDMA, GHMC Commissioner and other senior officials as members, besides representatives from ASCI, Osmania University and others, was mandated to study models followed in other cities, and examine the proposals by various vendors for formulation of guidelines.
