To reduce the gap between citizens and authorities BMC will continue its ward war room approach which has now come to be known as the Mumbai Model for addressing health or disaster related issues that may arise in future.

Additional Municipal Commissioner (Health, MCGM) Suresh Kakani has said that for any health or disaster related issues, BMC will continue with the ward war room approach even after the pandemic is over.

“We have decided to continue with the ward-room approach even after the pandemic is over. This model we will use to reduce the gap between citizens and authorities in times of any health-related issues or any future disaster-related crisis. Through this setup, citizens can directly approach the ward-war room for any kind of support,” Kakani said.

“We are also planning to develop a health plan for each ward so that a particular ward facing any particular disease such as TB, malaria, cholera, etc can be tackled more effectively and MCGM can reach out to citizens easily for providing necessary support and assistance,” he added.

Kakani was speaking at the webcast of Mumbai First-CITYNET International Discussion on Post Pandemic Urban Recovery - Smart Health Solutions - Asian Perspective.

Emphasising on the need for integrating and strengthening interventions in primary healthcare for preventing future health hazards, he said MCGM in the coming days will strengthen Mumbai's primary health care infrastructure.

Kakani said the corporation will share all relevant data with the IITs, IIMs and other reputed institutions for research and analysis and for inviting necessary suggestions on strategy, interventions and gaps in their model which then can be used for systematic management of a possible third wave  as well as better policy planning and implementation. This, he said, will be done only after a non-disclosure agreement with institutions. He said that they have been collecting data from all relevant sources and this data will be available to public in a limited way.

“MCGM will share the data with organizations or institutions for research and insight only after they sign a non-disclosure agreement with them. Since the start of pandemic MCGM has been using IT modules for data storage, data forecasting, data analysis as well as data management,” said Kakani, adding that MCGM is also tying up with some NGOs to reach out to people through data.   

Asked if the Mumbai Model will be implemented across MCGM departments in future, Kakani told Governance Now: “We have decided to continue the facility for redressing complaints and accepting suggestions and these would be operational. As of now it is operational 24x7 but in non-pandemic times this will be operational during office hours.”
He said the model will be implemented in BMC across departments like water supply and solid waste etc, which may require immediate intervention. Opening the plan across all departments will flood the municipality with calls and defocus issues that need immediate attention.

Kakani also said once the model becomes self-sustainable it will be difficult to dislodge it. He expressed hope that unlike now when BMC has deployed additional manpower for management of Covid-19, the model will be able to work with limited workforce.