Areas under Delhi’s three civic bodies among dirtiest in country

Areas under South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) ranked 31, the North corporation got the 43rd rank, and the East Delhi civic body stood 46th among the 47 cities surveyed

Barring the Lutyens’ zone of the national capital -- administered by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) -- areas under Delhi’s three municipal corporations were among the dirtiest surveyed for the Swachh Survekshan 2020 rankings for cities with a population of more than one million.

A heap of garbage near Geeta Colony in New Delhi. (Arun Sharma/HT File Photo)

Swachh Sarvekshan is the central government’s annual survey on cleanliness under the Swachh Bharat Mission. This was the fifth edition of the survey introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016. This year, the survey covered 4,242 cities across the country in which a total of 19 million citizens participated. The survey is conducted by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs.

Areas under South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) ranked 31, the North corporation got the 43rd rank, and the East Delhi civic body stood 46th among the 47 cities surveyed -- Patna, incidentally, was in last place. All the three MCDs are controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

At the same time, NDMC, which does not follow the same election mechanism the corporations do, earned New Delhi the tag of the “cleanest capital city”.

The category of cities with a population of more than one million was introduced this year in order to have a fair comparison among cities that have a major difference in their population indexes.

In 2019, when the category it was a part of (425 cities with a population of more than 1 lakh) included more cities, SDMC was 138th out of 425, North MCD 282nd, and the East Delhi civic body was in 240th place.

Rajiv Kumar Jain , superintending engineer and nodal officer of Swachh Bharat mission of SDMC said, “This time those cities above 10 lakh and below 10 lakh population were separated which is why it appears that we are lagging behind. However, if the marks scored are compared in the overall list, we are 120th in the 429 urban local bodies surveyed.”

South corporation mayor Anamika Mithilesh insisted that the civic body has moved up slightly in the rankings. “We have been carrying out various campaigns to segregate waste, improve the condition of landfills by recycling more and more waste. We hope to get even better ranking next year,” she said.

Officials in the other two corporations seemed more concerned.

North Corporation mayor Jai Prakash said he will convene a meeting to look into the various aspects that need to be worked upon to improve the area’s ranking. “Though we have been working hard to clear dhalaos (garbage dumps) located on the main roads and have set up new compost plants, we need to improve segregation of waste at the source,” said Prakash.

East Delhi mayor Nirmal Jain blamed the change in the criteria for poor ranking. He also said that they could have done better had the Delhi government released the due funds in time. “We have improved much from previous rankings. We could have done much better if the Delhi government had released funds,” said Jain.

The government has maintainted that there is no delay in payments from its side.

NDMC stood third in the rankings among the 382 cities surveyed in the ”Cities with 1 lakh to 10 lakh population” category. The council, which caters to a population of about 250,000, also got three stars out of five under the “Garbage Free City” award and two pluses in the “Open Defecation Free (ODF)” category -- the same as last year.

“NDMC is a bin free city with volume sensor underground bins which are monitored at a command and control centre. Besides, we are carrying out 100% door-to-door collection. No garbage goes to landfill site and the entire waste is incinerated to produce power,” said a senior NDMC official in a statement.

Delhi-based waste management expert Swati Singh Sambyal said except for the NDMC, the rankings of the three corporations are the manifestation of the ground realities. “It is high time that the corporations work out a system for sustainable waste management and reduce their dependence on the traditional method of dumping waste at landfills. They should rather focus on turning dhalaos into small waste processing centres for better results.”

According to the government, a total of 4,242 cities in multiple categories, 62 Cantonment Boards and 97 Ganga towns were surveyed.