Public Infrastructure and Services

This  policy document by the Government of Orissa outlines the draft infrastructure policy designed to promote development of the state of Orissa. The policy promotes private sector participation through provision of guidelines for private investments in infrastructure.

It encourages public private partnership, and provides a broader institutional and legal framework for implementation of projects through cross sectoral perspective.

In view of this scenario, and the housing shortage and budgetary constraints of both the central and state governments, the policy highlights the need for promotion of public-private partnerships to reach its goal of Affordable Housing for All.

Innovations in public service delivery systems to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the year 2015

A workshop on developing interface between water technology developers and other stakeholders particularly those who actively address water policy issues namely officials of Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Public Health Engineering Department, NGOs, International Organisations and Professional Associations was held by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) with support of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) at Nagpur on 7^th September, 2010. 

Sanitation - a big problem in India, as half the population of our country do not have access to this facility. Mumbai is one of the biggest cities in the world and advanced in terms of its commercialization. However, sanitation is one of the most common issues neglected. Our team of women from Jan Jagruti went into the lanes of 3 areas Azad Mohala, Bharatiya Kamla Nagar, Vijay Nagar and spoke to women to understand the severity of the sanitation issue prevailing. These areas have severe problems with public health, due to improper sanitation infrastructure and insufficiency of toilet facilities, compounded by numerous issues of flooding during the monsoon season. Khaaddi, a local area/dumping ground, is widely used by local residents for urination and defecation, leading to the spread of contagious diseases. Though women use paid toilets, the issue of cleanliness and waiting in long queues are the most common problem before them. It is very insecure for them when they use open spaces for defecation.

This Civil Engineering Course under the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) on the broad subject of Water Resources Engineering and Management is being carried out by Indian Institute of Technology’s and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore as a collaborative project supported by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (Government of India) to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country, by developing curriculum based video and web courses. In these web based lectures, the authors have developed the subject in detail and in stages in a student-friendly manner. The broad group of Water Resources Engineering is structured into modules on the topic by IIT Kharagpur as follows: