Bhubaneswar, April 7: Complaints of overflowing garbage bins could be a thing of the past as the municipal corporation is all set to install global positioning system (GPS) devices in its vehicles engaged in cleaning work.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will ink a pact with the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) in this regard.

The Union ministry of urban development in an official communication to the civic body has stressed upon the need to have GPS system in vehicles to ensure a transparent monitoring system for the solid waste management in the city. The ministry has also sent a draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) that will be inked with BSNL.

According to the official letter from the ministry: "One of the initiatives agreed upon by Bhubaneswar is implementation of a solution for tracking and monitoring of municipal vehicles as part of the smart city initiative. The MoU with BSNL will be covering theses solutions."

All the garbage bins and vehicles deployed to carry waste will be installed with a GPS device. This way the civic body officials will be able to track the movement of the vehicles and if they are cleaning the vats properly.

Earlier in 2014 and 2015, the civic body had tried to implement a similar project, but it could not be done due to some administrative glitches. In 2015, the corporation had planned to rope in private parties for implementation of the project. It had then invited proposals and two firms - one from Bhubaneswar and another from Calcutta were selected. However, due to technical problems the tender was cancelled and the project stalled.

Mayor Ananta Narayan Jena told The Telegraph that the process of installing the GPS in the municipal vehicles is under active consideration of the civic body. He said that the project would be implemented shortly to bring a transparency in the solid waste management in the city.

According to the draft MoU, the telecom giant will be responsible for monitoring the fleet status, managing information for waste collection and transportation, delivering real time SMS in case vehicles break down and maintaining transparency in the civic administration.

Sources in the BMC said that as the civic body had not made provision for the project in its annual budget in the current financial year, it would seek funds from the state housing and urban development department under the smart city project.

"We will talk to the officials of BSNL and the state government to finalise the cost and other modalities of the project. At present, we have nearly 350 waste collection points and two dump yards, one near Sainik School and the other in Bhuasuni. We have different types of vehicles such as trucks, tipper trucks and tractor-trailers for transportation of the waste," said a corporation official.

The civic body has also partnered with private parties to provide sanitation services to the residents. It has privatised the cleaning service in about 40 of its 67 wards. BMC's partners are using around 80 types of transport vehicles.

However, though the corporation is all set to take this giant leap, it is yet to resolve the issue of protests over the Bhuasuni dumping yard, which was locked down by the villagers in February. They had given a three months time to BMC to relocate the yard.