Swachh Survekshan Awards 2020:CM Khattar’s constituency Karnal is Haryana’s cleanest city

Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s constituency Karnal was ranked the cleanest city in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday at the Swachh Survekshan Awards.

Karnal was slotted at number 17 in cities with a population of 1 to 10 lakh. It also came in second in the region after the union territory of Chandigarh, which secured 8th position and emerged as the cleanest city in north India with a population of above 10 lakh.

Ranked 24 last year, Karnal scored 4,655 marks out of 6,000 in 2020.

Nishant Kumar Yadav, Karnal deputy commissioner as well as commissioner, municipal corporation, said the district achieved the cleanest status not just in Haryana but in several states across the country as well.

Around 9,289 residents in the city, which already had a 3-star rating as garbage-free city and was open defecation-free++ (ODF++) had participated in a survey to garner their feedback.

Four in top 100

Besides Karnal, three cities of Haryana with a population below 10 lakh: Rohtak (35), Panchkula (56) and Gurugram (62) were among the 100 top cities. Faridabad was ranked 38 in the category of population above 10 lakh.

Notably, MC had taken several initiatives to improve cleanliness in Karnal such as night sweeping, door-to-door garbage collection and installation of mobile and e-toilets in the city, which helped rankings jump from 65 in 2017 to 41 in 2018 and 24 in 2019.

On further improvements, Yadav said, “Now, our focus will be on improving our garbage free rating and in the area of service level progress and certification.”

Renu Bala Gupta, MC mayor, congratulated the people of Karnal for the achievement and thanked them for their cooperation. “This is a result of the collective efforts of the residents, especially the sanitation workers who work day and night to keep the city clean. They helped improve our ranking by making Karnal 3 star in garbage free rating.”

More projects would be started soon as part of the Smart City Mission, she said, adding that even dairy farms and meat shops were being moved outside the city.

“We also took several initiatives like introducing biometric attendance of safai karamcharis and will work more to improve our ranking,” she added.

How the others fared

Among notable changes, Ambala, the home constituency of urban local bodies minister Anil Vij, was ranked 120, moving up 26 slots from 146 last year. Ambala Cantonment Board also improved its rank to 27 this year from 50 in 2019.

Panchkula improved its showing to 56 from 71 last year; bagging third position in the state, a quantum leap from rank 142 in 2018 and 211 in 2017.

Among the laggards in the state, Sonepat ranked 103, Hisar 105, Rewari 118, Ambala 120, Yamunanagar 147, Panipat 160, Bhiwani 166, Jind 168, Sirsa 176, Kaithal 199, Bahadurgarh 216, Thanesar (Kurukshetra) 219 and Palwal 357.