E-Paper
Pune never deserved the 10th rank in national Swacch survey, say city activists
In the 2019 Swachh Survekshan awards , Pune dropped by 27 ranks and ranked 37th in the national Cleanest City survey conducted across 4,237 municipal areas, under the Swachh Bharat mission
Pune’s drop in the Swachh Survekshan national rankings from 10th position in 2018 to 37th position in 2019 has drawn sharp reactions from citizen-activists who said that the city never deserved the 10th ranking in the first place.
On Wednesday in the 2019 Swachh Survekshan awards , Pune dropped by 27 ranks in the national Cleanest City survey conducted across 4,237 municipal areas, under the Swachh Bharat mission. Last year, the city ranked 10th its best ever since the rankings started in 2016.
Major General Sudhir Jatar (retd), a senior member of the city-based NGO Nagrik Chetna Manch (NCM) said, “The latest rankings seem credible given the lack of cleanliness in the city. He said that the city could not have bagged the 10th position when many of its waste treatment plants were not functioning leading to the consistent increase of waste in the dumping grounds.”
Vishwas Sahasrabuddhe, member of city-based NGO Sajak Nagrik Manch, said, “The cleanliness rankings in the survey 2019 clearly destroys all the claims made by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) about taking numerous efforts to keep the city clean. If all the efforts presented on paper were implemented on ground, the Swachh Survekshan result would have been different.”
Suresh Jagtap former chief of the solid waste management department in the PMC under whom Pune secured the 10th rank, said the data submitted last year was accurate. He said, “We had provided the right information based on which we had secured the 10th position.”
However, he declined to comment on the sharp drop in the rankings and said, “It is currently not in my official capacity to make any comment on the issue as I no longer head solid waste management department in the PMC.” Jagtap currently holds the position of Joint municipal commissioner
Dynaneshwar Molak, additional commissioner and, solid waste management department head said, “We received less marks in documentation and certification, for according to parameters, we have completed everything, but perhaps it has not been checked properly by the third party companies.”
Under the survey, the sources and methods of data collection were segregated into three main areas, namely: collection of data from and interactions with municipal body, collection of data from direct observation and collection of data from citizen feedback.
OPPOSITION PROTEST
Members of the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) protested against the city administration, holding it accountable for the decline in the city ranking in the Swachh Survekshan awards 2019.
Dilip Barate , opposition leader of the NCP has demanded an inquiry into the Swachh rankings. “The civic body has spent lakhs of rupees on a consultant who seems to have not done the job properly and has failed to document the city waste management projects ,” Barate said.
The Methodology
Data Collection was segregated into 4 main areas:
Collection of data from online MIS portal of Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs for Service Level Progress
This relates to verification of data submitted by the Urban Local Bodies on the online MIS portal of MoHUA). Under this, the Municipal Commissioner/Nodal Officer is expected to self-assess the performance of the city as per survey indicators/questions. The assessor/survey agency will verify each and every detail entered on the online MIS.
Collection of data from Direct Observation: To be done by the survey agency and to include
a) residential and commercial areas
b) public and community toilets
c) vegetable/fruit/meat/fish markets
d) Catchment areas of biggest Railway Stations,
Bus Stations/Depots and Airport
e) Bulk waste generators such as hotels, banquet
halls, weekly vegetable market areas
Collection of data from Citizen Feedback: To be collected from Citizens directly (face to face), through Outbound Calls, 1969, Swachhata App/Swachh Manch and through Swachh Survekshan-2019 portal)
Third Party Certifications for Garbage Free Cities and Open Defecation Free Cities
