GVMC racing against time on ‘smart’ data collection

Out of two lakh questionnaires distributed, only 30,000 responses received so far

While two lakh questionnaires on smart city challenge have been distributed, 30,000 responses are received so far and with the deadline of October 30 approaching, GVMC is racing against time to improve citizen engagement and get more responses to the smart city challenge proposals.

In its effort to elicit citizens’ views in the bottom-up approach for preparing the proposals by December 31, GVMC has deployed 10 vans exclusively for the purpose of distributing the questionnaires in wards. Twenty-five local student volunteers are made part of the exercise.

Moreover, members of resident welfare associations and two lakh women members of self-help groups will be involved.

With schools re-opening on Monday efforts are on to involve 40,000 students in the essay-writing competition and get to their parents through them.

In its citizen engagement online and distribution of questionnaires, GVMC is targeting a maximum of five lakh responses.

“Since citizen consultation gets maximum weight in smart city challenge, we are striving to get as many responses as possible,” says Municipal Commissioner Pravin Kumar.

“Getting five lakh views will lead to convergence of real issues and sustainability of what we intend to,” he points out.

Online responses are invited on the portal mygov.in orwww.yourvoiceyour- vizag.com.

Another potential problem is about 40 per cent of the 20 lakh population lives in slums with no access to internet or ill-equipped on how to handle it.

Data entry

Getting the questionnaires filled leads to a huge task of data entry. Since morning on Tuesday all the computers in GVMC are being used for data entry.