The Indore-Garland partnership was initiated in 2002 as part of the India Resource Cities Program. The first exchange to Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) took place in December 2002. The partners agreed to focus on two key areas: solid waste management and revenue generation. Over the course of the last two years, through a series of technical exchanges and ongoing communications, technical staff from the two cities have worked together to introduce new management techniques and systems in both areas.
The Indore Municipal Corporation is in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh (one of 27 states in India’s federal system of government). With a population of approximately 1.6 million, Indore is the largest city in Madhya Pradesh, which, like other states, has only recently begun to decentralize responsibilities and authorities to the municipal level. One major step that Madhya Pradesh has taken is to introduce an Executive Mayor position, the first state in India to do so. ICMA recruited Garland, Texas, a full service city in the greater Dallas metropolitan area, to partner with Indore.
Indore, like other cities throughout India, is facing an uphill task of providing quality infrastructure to its growing population. It faces a number of major challenges: in financial management, revenue generation, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of services (in particular environmental services), and engaging citizens in the local governance process. To illustrate Indore’s financial challenges, the city had regularly collected about 45% of property tax bills it was due, and faced similar problems collecting utility bills from many customers, impacting the level of services the Municipal Corporation could provide to its citizens.
After exposure to Garland’s customer service methods, IMC launched a pilot ‘Water Civic Center’ in the city to provide service users with a convenient and customer-friendly place to make payments and discuss service issues, giving citizen’s more direct access to their public service providers. IMC also launched a public education campaign to communicate with residents and business owners about the connection between fee payments and the city’s ability to improve services, providing a greater understanding to citizens of the connection between utility and property tax rates and the quality and coverage of public services.
Impressed by Garland’s use of GIS to maintain a comprehensive database of information on properties located in the city, IMC has also contracted out for the development of a GIS system to computerize its property tax rolls, which would increase the number of properties on municipal tax rolls and help to resolve outstanding bills from customers.
During exchanges with Garland, IMC delegates learned about Garland’s holistic waste management system, including its collection and disposal systems and landfill design and management. A Supreme Court regulation in India requires all cities in India to work towards improved solid waste management systems including the construction of a sanitary landfill site. The partnership with Garland enabled IMC to develop a pilot sanitary landfill cell at its existing dump. Working together, the partners also identified suitable sites for a new, sanitary landfill. Garland officials helped their Indore partners consider all relevant factors involved in planning and budgeting for the construction of the landfill, and prepare detailed design documents and specifications. In addition, Garland officials provided technical advice to IMC on its plans to build two new waste transfer stations.
The two cities also worked towards exploring the feasibility to generate electricity by installing turbines at the Narmada water intake site. Garland engineers assisted with design, technology and cost analysis exercises to determine capital recovery rates and the financial viability of turbine installation in the existing water system.
The final best practices symposium for the partnership was held in September 2004 in association with the state city managers’ association. Partners from Indore presented their project results to an audience of officials from Bhopal as well as city managers from other municipalities of the state. These discussions provided an opportunity for other city managers to replicate these projects in their cities and a number of other cities in Madya Pradesh expressed interest in visiting Indore to learn from their experience. Case studies were written about each project undertaken through the partnership and disseminated at the conference, and Indore and Garland will continue to work together, exchanging information in order to better improve services in their cities.