Mumbai: Urban planning using GIS

October 15, 2019

Author: Pooja_Sharma

Business Challenge

The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) covers a total area of 454 sq. km. and caters to a population of 12.43 million according to 2011 census. There are 24 wards under the corporation and more than 75 departments to provide various services to citizens of Mumbai.

Being the largest City of India, with a high density of population 20,634 person/sq. km., the major challenge is to meet the increasing demands of governance and service delivery for the citizens.

To improve service delivery, MCGM embarked on an ambitious e-Government initiative, aimed at enhancing responsiveness to citizens’ needs; increasing operating efficiency and effectiveness; improving financial health; and ensuring greater transparency within various departments like Sewerage Operations, Disaster Management, Environmental Department and Public Health Department.

There were challenges like:

1. Need of a local spatial database
2. Requirement of a common base map
3. Unavailability of attribute and department GIS data
4. Lack of end to end GIS data management
5. Changes required in business processes
6. Isolated policy making
7. Challenges of significant and continuous technology changes
8. Duplication of data
9. Significant use of hardcopy maps
10. Lack of skilled personnel
11. Lack of GIS data standards and sharing policies

Primarily, MCGM wanted to provide citizen services through a GIS portal and improve inter-department collaboration.

 

Solution

GIS provides a common communication language to the different stakeholders of a city, it provides a language to citizens to interact with government.

Thus, a digitised map of Greater Mumbai was created by digitizing Tikka and Town Planning scheme images. Land parcels and roads were digitised, followed by scanning and digitising of 6,000+ images to capture different features of the city, incorporating the development plan for 20 years, all major utilities, revenue elements and social infrastructure, to have an integrated database for better planning and management, and sustainable development of the city.

Esri GIS Integrator was envisaged to bring all MCGM GIS data and applications to a collaborative GIS content sharing platform. Desktop GIS applications were deployed in 2008 for generating Development Plan remarks for department users. MCGM Development Plan Department launched the OneMCGM Portal which is used by the MCGM internal users. The Portal host all the GIS data of different departments and web applications that are shared across the user base.

In five departments GIS was used to design, migrate/implement and maintain GIS data and web applications for end-to-end asset management. These Departments are Sewerage Operations, Roads and Traffic, Hydraulic Engineering, Storm Water Drainage and Bridges. 35 layers of GIS information have been crated in OneMCGM portal for catering to the requirements of these departments.

Sewage Operation Department: SO department manages the entire Sewerage network within the City and the Suburbs of MCGM area. Application Tools for location-based management include:

• Asset Management
• Preventive Maintenance
• Complaint Management
• Condition assessment
• Fast & Easy Monitoring
• Easy Reporting
• Enhanced Visualization
• Efficient planning
• Decision Support System
• User Management
• Distributed Data Editing

SO Department Web Application – Legend

SO Department Web Application – Modules

SO Department Web Application – Network Analysis

Development Department Remarks Generation: Development Department plans and implements the Development Plan (DP) for the city of Mumbai. Each development plan spans 20 years, current one being from 2014-2034. Based on the urban planning and town planning standards and policies, DP plan details the land use across the MCGM area, divided into 24 administrative wards. DP Plan consists details of existing amenities, existing roads, town planning schemes, coastal regulatory zones, land use zones, parcels boundaries, planned amenities, planned roads and road widening information, slum rehabilitation areas, etc. (100+ layers). Remarks Generation Application facilitates:

• Obtaining DP department’s remarks is the first step of getting construction permission within the city of Mumbai for any type of construction.
• Online SRDP 1991 (for DP plan 1991-2011) and Online DP34 (DP Plan 2014 – 2034) applications developed by Esri India are available to any citizen who wishes to generate remarks against their input parcels for a nominal fee.
• Based on the selected input plots on the map, the application will generate the GIS remarks in pdf format.
• In addition to land use information, the application also fetches information from other department’s data like Hydraulic Engineering (Water works), Sewerage Operations, Storm Water Drainage and contour.
• The application can be accessed through the following URLs

SRDP1991 – https://dpremarks.mcgm.gov.in/srdp1991

DP2034 – https://dpremarks.mcgm.gov.in/dp2034/

As part of OneMCGM initiative, a Mobile Application for citizens was developed for viewing the various DP reservations.

Integration with SAP: OneMCGM is integrated with different applications running in MCGM to create spatial reports.

1. Integration with Capital Value System (CVS)

• Establishment of integrated communication between GIS and CVS applications
• Assignment of multiple SAC nos. to single building and sharing the building IDs with CVS system
• Assignment of Single SAC no. single building
• Assignment of single SAC no. to multiple buildings
• Integrated GIS and CVS environment to execute above functionalities.
• Consolidated Mapping Report

2. Integration with Auto DCR system Building Construction Approval Management System (BCAMS) under EODB initiative.

• Under One MCGM this integration is enhanced as when applicant apply for Construction permit in AutoDCR system applicant will select respective CTS/CS no in GIS and GIS will transfer Remarks of DP, SO, HE, Traffic, RL etc. to AutoDCR and Common application form will get filled automatically with required details and remarks will be attached to application. It is a Service level integration.

3. Integration with SAP(PS) System for real-time projects monitoring.

• When any new engineering work will be started same will be updated in GIS at stage of WBS creation, user must mark work in GIS without this WBS cannot be released in SAP(PS) module. This covers Roads, Sewerage Projects, Sewerage Operations, Hydraulic Engineering, Storm Water Drains & Bridges department. User need to mark line, point, polygon or combinations in GIS against WBS no created in SAP(PS). Executive Dashboards are created in this for ready MIS to officials with WBS details attached to it. It is a Service level integration.

4. Integration with SAP-RE System for Real Estate Department.

• Linking of Unique Property ID of SAP-RE system with Building polygon in GIS
• Search of GIS features to assist users to locate Estate property on map
• Estate Property Mapping Approval by Supervisor
• Consolidated Mapping Report

Dashboards: For the executive monitoring a real time operation dashboard has been created.

Mobile based Workflow: GIS enabled mobile apps had been created for the MCGM Field staff to view and update project status from the field.

Impact on Citizen Service Delivery 

This e-Government initiative would help citizens to request for services in an easier and faster manner, thus resulting in significant savings in cost and time. The Municipality would consequently be in a better position to service its citizens, better monitor and control its activities and introduce Customer Relationship Management (CRM) concepts; resulting in tangible and visible increase in the quality of services for the average citizen.

The ‘One MCGM GIS’ portal displays latest information about various departments of the civic body, which could be mainly utilised by its officials and workers with an aim to speed up decision-making and coordination. Through this application and website, people can get better services.

One MCGM has brought all the applications to one Enterprise GIS Platform

1. Enterprise Geo-Database of MCGM
2. Institutionalization in Spatial data management
3. Survey Guidelines
4. Standard Procedures for GIS data creation, usage, cleaning and auditing
5. Enterprise GIS Web applications
6. GIS integrations with other applications

Earlier arrangement required Citizens to visit local ward offices of MCGM to seek the information of DP reservations, city survey number, etc. With the launch of Mobile Application, citizens now can download the app on their mobile phone and using GPS location can view the all details of the plot/DP reservations. It also became a Common Application platform.

• GIS On the GO – Mobile app for citizens and field users was launched.
• Integration with ERP – SAP integration for project monitoring and maintenance
• Decision Support System became better and helped in effective planning

Details on current usage of the system 

Till date, more than 10,000 Android and iOS users have downloaded and used this application.