PROBLEM
Poor governance in construction of public facilities such as schools and roads is a major concern in some countries including Pakistan. Low quality construction leads to poor service delivery to citizens and ultimately erodes the writ of the state.According to anecdotal evidence, there is rampant corruption in such projects by the contractors in collusion with the government officials.
APPROACH
We have devised an innovative way to ensure that such projects are carefully monitored to minimize chance of corruption. Low-cost cameras and smart phone will be used for the monitoring of small scale construction projects which are of high frequency and carried out by mid or low-level contractors. These are the projects that are mostly likely to be neglected in terms of their monitoring requirements. Our main focus is on small road construction and small-scale building projects.
PROCESS
The field monitor will visit the construction site and take photographs from his smart phone or a DSLR of the critical construction stages and the materials used in the stages according to a pre-defined protocol.
The pictures will be timed and geotagged by the smartphone or DSLR and then be transmitted and uploaded to a provincial construction-monitoring server.
At the office, the trained civil engineers or auditors will review the photographs and record their observations on the quality of the construction work.
If the quality is satisfactory then no further action needs to be taken and the protocol and stage of construction will be marked as being approved.
IN COLLABORATION WITH
