Litmus test: Mysuru set to undergo 'Swachh Survekshan'

500 cities vie for Clean City tag; MCC hopes to score hat-trick

The City of Palaces, which bagged the ‘Clean City’ tag for two consecutive years, will face a litmus test in its bid to retain the tag for the third time as the Quality Council of India (QCI) team is all set to conduct ‘Swachh Survekshan’ survey on January 4.

Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) hopes to score a hat-trick. But, this time, negative marking and people’s opinion are the major challenges before the MCC. In the survey too, the MCC had scored less marks in citizen’s feedback.

MCC Commissioner G Jagadeesha said, a list of contact numbers of 20,000 people has been sent to the QCI and the team members would contact a select few.

“The team will ask six questions to the people in one minute. In the previous survey, the answers of many residents had been marked negative due to language barrier as the questions were asked in English and Hindi. This time, we have appealed to the Swacch Bharat Mission (SWM) authorities to ask questions in the regional language,” he said.
Hoping that Mysuru would retain the award, Deputy Commissioner D Randeep said, 100% achievement in documentation is a positive for the city. According to him 45% of marks depend on documentation.

“The city may lose 40 marks as the progress on construction of individual toilets has been dismal due to financial constraints. As per the norms, the Union and state governments provide Rs 5,333 to construct a toilet. But, to construct a toilet a minimum of Rs 18,000 is needed. The MCC aimed to construct 425 toilets, but could build only 40 and a few more are under construction. However, the city has achieved 100% in community toilets,” said Jagadeesha.

When it comes to ‘Swachhata App’, as per the directives of SWM, 5% of the total population of the city must download the app. At present, of more than 10 lakh population, only 5,169 people in the city have downloaded the app and 3000 complaints have been registered.

Jagadeesha said, though the app was launched on August 4, 2016, it was available for downloading for the past one month. The MCC has been holding campaigns to create awareness among the people on downloading the app. Compared to previous years, the city is much ahead and have more value addition. Use of plastic in laying of roads, on-site compost systems among others are a few additions to the city, the commissioner said.

The QCI team will visit 44 places in the city under 11 categories, such as temples, public toilets, markets, railway and bus stations to check the maintenance. This time, 500 cities in the country will compete for the clean city tag as against only 73 cities last year. In 2016, the city had scored 1,749 marks out of 2,000.

Mayor M J Ravikumar said, the MCC is getting good support from the Mysureans and the civic workers. Without their effort, it would not be possible for the city to regain the ‘Clean City’ tag.