Bhubaneswar: To instil a sense of competition among urban local bodies, the housing and urban development department has asked them to set their own service level benchmark, achieve those and lobby for incentives from the state government.

The department has framed guidelines and asked the state's urban local bodies to evaluate themselves on those parameters, set the benchmarks and submit it to the department before March 31. The government will then monitor their performances for granting incentives.

On getting the directive, officials of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation have swung into action. The civic body wants to bag the incentive that it had lost to the Rourkela Municipal Corporation in the current fiscal. Rourkela defeated Bhuban-eswar to emerge as the state's best performing urban local body this year.

"We have got the guidelines and direction. There are certain changes that need to be followed rigorously. We will coordinate with our allied agencies to frame a roadmap for regaining our title. We will shortly convene a meeting with them to set the benchmark," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

The guidelines state that the civic body will have to show that it has improved its revenue collection, ensured pipe water supply to 100 per cent households, reduced supply of non-revenue water, provided uninterrupted water supply to community and public toilets and disposed of solid waste in a scientific way.

"We have increased our revenue collection and identified the defaulters of holding tax and directed them to pay before March 31 or face action. We are conducting special trade licence camps and have regulated the advertisement tax among others steps. We are confident that our efforts will yield results," said Jena.

Similarly, the Public Health Engineering Organisation, which is in charge of water supply, has decided to hire an agency to assess the loss of water during transition and install methods to reduce it. Besides, they are in the process to install water meters in houses to boost its revenue.

"We are working to improve the city's water supply status. We are making efforts to reduce water loss and generate revenue by saving it. We will collaborate with the civic body to conduct a survey of uncovered areas and hold camps there to extend piped water connections to the houses," said Pheo superintending engineer C.R. Jena.

Each year, the housing and urban development department distributes incentives to urban local bodies based on their performance in three categories - best performing municipal corporations, municipalities and notified area councils. The municipal corporation grant is Rs 2 crore, which is likely to be increased this year, sources said.