Jamshedpur: A three-member delegation from Alto Minho city in Portugal visited Jamshedpur to explore best practices in urban service in a city, which has been adjudged cleanest in the state in pan-India Swachh Survekshan rankings 2022.

The delegation visited facilities of Tata Steel Utilities and Infrastructure Services Limited (TSUISL, formerly known as Jusco, the utility arm of Tata Steel), between Tuesday and Friday.

“The visit was part ofthe ongoing cooperation between both the cities under the European Union-funded International Urban and Regional Cooperation (IURC) programme wherein the two cities had signed an agreement recently to mutually cooperate and exchange best practices in various areas of urban services, including solid waste management and principles of public administration,” said a communique issued by Tata Steel on Friday evening.

During the visit, the Portuguese group comprising Constantino Azevedo, Sandra Estevens and Celestina Oliveira De met the team of corporate services in Tata Steel comprising Pranay Sinha, Varun Bajaj and Vaibhav Gupta along with TSUISL managing director Rituraj Sinha and his team comprising Sanjeev Jha and Manoj Shekhawat.

Both teams exchanged town management practices with a specific focus on solid waste management and water management. The group also visited various sites in the city to explore urban services such as roads, parks, water, wastewater and solid waste management.

They also held discussions and brainstorming sessions on various topics such as solid waste management, water, wastewater and other municipal services that Tata Steel has been providing through TSUISL to the citizens of Jamshedpur.

The officials of Tata Steel and TSUISL discussedthe practical issues and challenges that the utility company has been facing on a day-to-day basis to provide these services.

“The performance of Jamshedpur city against various standards and parameters regarding the delivery of various urban services was discussed and appreciated by the Portuguese team.

“The team has made some site visits especially municipal solid waste facilities, public parks, biodiversity parks and other parks in the city, which are managed by a team in the horticulture department of the city,” read a communique of Tata Steel.

The Portuguese team also made site visits to understand the entire value chain of solid waste management in Jamshedpur, including door-to-door collection, source segregation, garbage transfer stations, waste processing sites, dumping sites and learnt the entire waste management cycle.

In addition, the team visited water treatment facilities, wastewater treatment facility, citizen service centre (Jusco Sahyog Kendra) and integrated command and control centres.

“The team has in particular liked the performance on key services — door-to-door collection of waste, removal of legacy waste, RDF facility. In addition, the team has also admired the performance of TSUISL on various key indicators such as NRW (non-revenue water), satellite observation of key parameters of raw water and finally the command-and-control centre, which has been observing all the services quite efficiently,” the Tata Steel statement added.

“It has been agreed that Alto Minho will support Jamshedpur in implementing the waste deodorisation technique in one of the waste management plants which may be replicated in other plants as well. All the necessary information, including the technical specifications, will be shared by the Alto Minho team,” the statement added.

Tata Steel, on the other hand, has agreed to share the best case of the organisational public administration system, a Tata Steel spokesperson said.