This App Will Help Bhubaneswar To Curb Impact Of Urban Flooding

Bhubaneswar: Uncontrolled urbanisation often leads to urban flooding and the Temple City is facing the crisis twice or thrice almost every year due to climate change, drainage blockage and encroachment in main drains. Now, an information communication technology (ICT) based solution can help in curbing the menace in the future.

Called “Mu City Savior,” the app will 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) developed this digital solution using co-creation methodology by involving citizens of the pilot area.

The digital solution consists of a volunteer app called "Mu City Savior" which will allow citizens to report about the current status of identified critical points in drains. The app will collect information on three aspects from the citizens i.e. is there any garbage in the drains, what is the water level in the drains and how is the water flow in the drains.

This information will go directly to an analytical system, where it will get analysed along with pre-existing static information such as vulnerability map of the project area, drainage type and capacity, land use type and the number of people staying in the locality. Based on this information, the analytical system will send notification to city officials with a priority list on real-time basis. Using that list, the city officials can act accordingly and keep the drains clean to reduce the impact of urban flooding.

The app is being promoted through several community events by students from local colleges and educational institutions in Nayapalli and Shatabdi Nagar. It is available on Google Play Store. However, it will be fully functional by the next monsoon. On Tuesday BMC, BSCL in partnership with GIZ officially launched the “Mu City Savior”App at Syed Mumtaz Ali High School.