[box type=”shadow” ]Developed by Lodha Group and spread over 4500 acres, Palava City (Dombivili, Mumbai) is perhaps India’s first smart city. It is currently the home to 30,000 residents and the number is expected to go to two million in the coming years. Expectedly, the upkeep of the City is a big task. Sanu Samuel, Deputy General Manager, Handover & FM, Palava City Management Association, Lodha Group dombivali explores the systems put in place by Palava City Management Association (PCMA), that is responsible for the upkeep of the City.[/box]
The Association ensures the uninterrupted services for stable power & water supply, city security, internal & external transport, housekeeping & waste Management, horticulture, customer care and liaising with different government departments for formulation of city policies and providing highquality but cost-effective services.
City Housekeeping
The Palava housekeeping team is responsible for maintaining cleanliness at the entire city. Palava currently has 325 Residential Buildings, a five lakh square feet mall – Xperia, two schools – Lodha World School and Pawar Public School, club houses, one FIFA standard football ground and stadium, one cricket ground and stadium, over 15km of internal tarred roads, gardens, commercial spaces, parking spaces, and Palava Fire Station.
City housekeeping operations are divided into two teams of building operations and City operations.
Ergonomics: Metrics, set standards for cleaning of buildings and city spaces have been derived on the optimum use of man-machine-time to utilize resources optimally and efficiently. These metrics are assessed from time to time and revisions done based on the population increase and are based on time and motion assessments in different areas of the housekeeping operations.
Building Housekeeping Operations
The 325 residential buildings spread across the city are 7, 19 and 22 storied and come with their own challenges of cleaning and upkeep. The housekeeping team has schedules and operating procedures tailor-made to suit the demographics of each building cleaning, ensuring scheduled cleaning is carried out daily, weekly and monthly. Resident feedback is collected on overall services and room for improvement.
Waste Segregation at Source
Every household at Palava City is given green and blue bins at the time of taking possession. Segregated waste is picked up daily using black bag for wet waste and white bag for dry waste. PCMA communicates with each individual through emails and SMS regularly on waste segregation and its importance.
Segregated waste collected from households is brought to the collection points, designated for each building cluster and then brought to a central collection area. Waste is collected and transported to the Solid Waste Management Facility.
Prior to the formation of a Residents Welfare Association, each society is spring cleaned and defect identification and rectification are carried out.
City Operations
City common spaces like roads, pathways, gardens, commercial areas, parking, mall, schools, football & cricket stadium and club houses are maintained by the public area housekeeping teams who ensure the city is clean and well-kept at any point of time. Roads are continuously swept to be dust free and roadside bins are cleared time to time. There is also pre- and post-clean up before and after major cultural programs in the City like festivities, concerts, and carnivals.
