E-Paper
Three stars for Karnal in swachh ratings
Though three stars signify a poor rank, with 7-star rating being the highest, Karnal has fared much better than the other cities of Haryana, while being at par with Punjab’s Chandigarh and Nawanshahr
The bastion of chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, Karnal has received a 3-star rating in the garbage-free cities survey conducted by the Union housing and urban affairs ministry.
Though three stars signify a poor rank, with 7-star rating being the highest, Karnal has fared much better than the other cities of Haryana, while being at par with Punjab’s Chandigarh and Nawanshahr. With 1-Star rating, Rohtak also received a mention in the list of 141 cities.
Overjoyed by the performance, Karnal mayor Renu Bala Gupta said, “It’s a big achievement for the people of Karnal as it is the only city from Haryana to have grabbed a 3-Star rating, equivalent to Chandigarh.” She congratulated the civic officials and said more efforts were required to improve the rating further.
Municipal commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav said the star rating is awarded on the basis of 25 key parameters fixed for solid waste management. “Last year there were only 19 parameters, making the survey even tougher this year, but our performance was better,” he added.
“Karnal had got 3-star rating last year and more efforts will be made to get better results next year. The capacity of the solid waste management plant is being enhanced with the construction of a new 50 MLD unit,” Yadav said.
The commissioner said the city had already improved its rating in the Swachh Survekshan 2021 as it had got 500 points for ODF++ category and the 3-star rating added 600 points.
Launched in January 2018, the star rating protocol aims to institutionalise a mechanism for cities to achieve garbage-free status, and to motivate them to achieve higher degrees of cleanliness.
As per the reports by Union housing and urban affairs ministry, six cities in the country have achieved 5-star rating, 65 have three stars and 70 got 1-star rating this year.
