Bengaluru, which is also known as the ‘Silicon Valley of India’, was in the bottom three in the Swachh Survekshan 2022 rankings which came out recently.
The Swachh Survekshan list
India’s tech hub was ranked 43rd among 45 cities surveyed under the Swachh Survekshan 2022 list which came out on Saturday, a steep downfall from the 28th spot in the previous year when 48 cities were compared, reported Times of India.
Bengaluru was better only to Chennai and Madurai, which were in the bottom two. Among other states, Madhya Pradesh was the cleanest in the country for the sixth consecutive year. Surat and Navi Mumbai stood second and third.
This is a massive drop of 15 spots compared to the last year’s rank of 28. In 2021, Bengaluru had even bagged the ‘fastest mover mega city’ award. Meanwhile, Mysuru was in the eighth position on the list.
Responses from citizens
Bengaluru’s civic administrative body, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is said to have received more than five lakh responses from residents for the survey.
According to sources in the BBMP’s SWM wing, the civic body managed to collect 5 lakh responses on topics such as segregation at source, the city’s cleanliness level, and availability of public toilets compared to 2021 when around 10,000 responses were collected. “We made special efforts to get citizens’ feedback but despite the efforts, the ranking is poor,” one of them said.
Officials said that by adopting a novel approach of ‘Citizen First’, the annual Swachh rankings for 2022 was centered around the theme of ‘People First’. As many as 4,354 cities took part in the survey. The theme pays tribute to the wisdom of the elderly and sought responses from senior citizens.
Meanwhile, IAS officer Tushar Giri Nath, the chief commissioner of the BBMP, said there was a conflict between the consultant appointed by the Centre and BBMP, and the authorities will look into this ranking in detail.
Also, the BBMP special commissioner for solid waste management, Harish Kumar, said it is not fair to compare a mega city like Bengaluru with some smaller cities in the category as the challenges they face are different.
