JOIN USWhile Mysuru has retained its number one position as the cleanest city in the country, Bengaluru’s ranking has slumped from seven in 2015 to 38 this year under the Swachh Survekshana survey.
The City has got a score of 1,182 on 2,000. Some of the places sampled for the survey to assess the level of cleanliness, sanitation, infrastructure among others were Madiwala market, Kempegowda bus station, slums at Anepalya and the public toilet at Katriguppe bus stand.
According to the survey records published on swachhbharaturban.gov.in, while the public toilet at Katriguppe bus stop was found to be not well-lit and ventilated, no garbage bin was found within 200 metres in KR Market. About 75 per cent of the area in Russell Market was found to be clean during the survey. In the citizens’ feedback section of the survey, 95 per cent of the citizens said ‘yes’ to the question of ‘Do individual households have toilets?’ While 32 per cent said there was door-to-door collection of garbage every day, only nine per cent said the City was always clean.
The survey was conducted in 73 cities with 10 lakh-plus population in an attempt to assess the measures taken by the cities to improve sanitation, service levels, including infrastructure developed and in progress, and most importantly, the overall impact of the Swachch Bharat Mission in the cities.
Palike’s takeBBMP Special Commissioner for Solid Waste Management, Subodh Yadav, said he did not know why Bengaluru’s ranking had taken a beating despite efforts made by the municipal corporation to maintain the City clean. “We have been actively involved in waste management programmes, especially in the past three months. I do not know where we went wrong,” he said.
He said the civic agency had faced quite a few challenges last year in waste management, such as closure of the landfill at Bingipura in October and rains in December. These factors might have contributed to Bengaluru getting low ranking. “Ranking is done by giving priority to the ‘visibility part’. We are working at long-term and effective solutions to make the City clean,” Yadav said.