Swachh Survekshan 2022: Gzb secures 12th, Noida 5th rank in respective categories

Officials of Noida authority said the city also bagged the ‘best self-sustainable medium city’ award as it did not apply for or receive any additional aid from the state or Centre for its sanitation programme

Noida city was judged the cleanest city in Uttar Pradesh and fifth in the country among cities with 100,000 to one million population in the Swachh Survekshan 2022, the results of which were announced on Saturday.

Despite Ghaziabad city bettering its ranking, garbage mounds are still seen in several parts of the city. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

Ghaziabad city secured the 12th spot, up from its rank of 18 last year, in the category of cities having a population between one to four million, officials of the Ghaziabad municipal corporation said.

In 2019, it secured the 13th rank in the country.

The annual Swachh Survekshan has evolved from being an assessment of 73 cities in the year 2016 to covering 4,354 cities this year.

Officials of Noida authority said the city also bagged the ‘best self-sustainable medium city’ award as it did not apply for or receive any additional aid from the state or Centre for its sanitation programme.

“We worked on several fronts and were expecting a better ranking this year. We constructed two new sewage treatment plants and the ground survey team was also quite happy. We have been told that we need to improve on sewage management. We will try to improve our ranking next year,” said Ritu Maheshwari, Noida authority chief executive officer.

Authority officials said that in the past one year, the Noida authority improved its door-to-door waste collection, and has set up decentralised waste processing facilities as well as material recovery facilities.

Maheshwari said that the authority will aim at finalising the city’s waste processing plant by next year.

Ghaziabad officials said they were proud to have bettered their ranking. “It is a matter of great pride for us as the city improved its previous ranking and has secured the 12th spot in the national rankings. The better results are due to an improvement in infrastructure with focus on door-to-door solid waste collection, segregation of dry and wet waste and also processing of solid waste,” said Nitin Gaur, the newly appointed municipal commissioner, Ghaziabad municipal corporation.

Gaur said that further improvements will be taken up with respect to solid waste. The corporation will soon start five major solid waste transfer stations in the city to improve collection, transportation and processing, he added.

Ghaziabad city secured a total of 5,387.67 points out of a total of 7,500 points and has fared better than the national average of 2,618 points and a state average of 2,333 points.

The city was rated over 90% in terms of door-to-door waste collection, cleanliness of roads, market places, water bodies, residential areas and dry sweeping in residential localities.

“We have also deployed more personnel at the micro level to help segregation of dry and wet waste at source. We have also increased door-to-door solid waste collection coverage by roping in 300 more vehicles,” Gaur added. He said that the city will try to improve its three-star ranking in Open Defecation Free (ODF) and will take up measures to achieve a five-star rating next year.

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