When the new executive committee of SCRWA was elected in October 2022, the new team was very keen to implement its Manifesto promises of solving 3 structural issues in 100 days, namely a 21-member executive committee, expansion of SCRWA membership and amending the Memorandum of Association for a collegium based RWA.
Though two of these issues just require an amendment of the MoA, many internal and other reasons have delayed this process. As SCRWA we are committed to all our promises and residents can hope to see this implemented before the end of June.
Security, Cleanliness, Regular garbage collection, and working to improve electrical and other infrastructure were decided to be the key focus areas by the team.
What went well
In the first EC meeting, we decided to work towards a Zero waste colony and signed an MoU with Sahaas NGO to help in the segregation of waste and appointed MCG authorized vendor, EcoGreen for the collection and processing of waste in November. We are proud to report that the level of segregation has increased from about 20% in November 2022 to about 80% in April 2023. Not bad South City residents!
Within the first month after the elections, our team launched an upgraded SCRWA website and a helpdesk for residents to report issues being faced. This is a key attempt in providing responsive and transparent RWA. We are facing a challenge that most residents continued to use WhatsApp to report issues, so its usage has declined after the initial hype when launched.
Our team has also focused that all street-light-related faults are attended to immediately and are proud to claim reasonable success. Not just streetlights, our team has been regularly pursuing DHBVN staff to upgrade electrical infrastructure. Many new transformers have been energized and conductors are being changed. Almost 25 km of conductors have been installed and another 70 km are in the process of being procured.
Our team is committed to transparency in functioning and regularly publishing minutes of meetings and account statements.
Our team has held block-level meetings with residents of B, M and one lane of Q block and conducted an open house with Block residents in January in SCRWA office and a meeting with block representatives in April.
What Could Have Been Better
Our attempt at getting MCG to respond to resident issues has been our Achilles heel. The lack of an elected Councillor since the beginning of our term has also been a big factor in our inability to get MCG issues resolved efficiently.
On increasing block-level representation, we have been able to get representatives from most of the blocks to work with EC team but challenges continue in some blocks.
Challenges Ahead
Our biggest challenges are lack of regular source of income, no enthusiasm among residents to become members of SCRWA and unresponsive bureaucracy and MCG. With many well-wishers besides us, We shall overcome all challenges… very soon
