Referring to the sanitation survey announced by Housing and Urban affairs minister, Indore and Bhopal have retained their position as the top two cleanest cities for the second consecutive year. If Chandigarh took the third position then Vijaywada ranked #1 among big cities having more than one million population. Nearly 37.66 lakh citizens voted for Swacch Survekshan, which covered 4,203 municipalities across India. On the other hand, Mysuru emerged as the cleanest among the cities with a population of three lakh to one million while Great Mumbai found to be the cleanest among all state capitals.
Why didn’t Bengaluru make it to top three?
Despite being known as the most dynamic city, Bengaluru has failed to feature among top three. The survey conducted covered 4,041 cities and urban local bodies. The parameters to arbitrate cities included the collection and transportation of waste, processing, and disposal, sanitation, open defecation, a behavioral change brought out by information, education, and communication.
Experts opine and blame assessment parameters for Bengaluru’s poor rank. They say that the more weight has been given to things like dustbin and hoarding instead of continual things being achieved via long-term measures. Sandhya Narayan, member of the solid waste management roundtable said that there should have been a mention of Bengaluru’s waste-processing capacity.
She added,
“A lot of emphases was given to dustbins in public areas but when waste is not collected and transported, the dustbins overflow and become black spots. The survey focused more on surface cleanliness rather than ensuring sustainability.”
Citizens don’t know much about the Ground Reality
Narayan also highlighted a major problem of Citizens being kept in dark about the ground realities. She said, “We should have got a special mention for our comprehensive micro plan as well as our processing potential, which is presently at 2,300 tonnes.”
“Cities with a population of 10 lakh can’t be compared to a city housing 100 lakh people.”
The micro plan which was launched in 2017 divides each ward into blocks of 750 households with designated facilities for each block.
Words of Citizens
Balamurugan Bala said,
I am a Bangalorean and sorry to say my city can never be in the list of clean cities..we throw our waste in every city corners, shopkeepers throw their waste on the road and garbage never gets cleared on daily basis.. and recently BBMP found more than 100 truck based compactors missing!!!
Lakshmi Jayaprakash said,
Must be a joke, right? Lived there from early 2000 to 2015 and had the misfortune to watch the city deteriorate in front of my eyes- the lush green Bangalore is loved was reduced to dirt dust and dryness in just over a decade. How did anyone ever expect Bangalore to feature in this list?
Keerthi Vardhan said,
6 years ago when I relocated to Bangalore, I fell in awe for its green and clean. However, the situation changed so drastically in the last 4 years that there was filth everywhere; pizza boxes, parcel covers and what not. I try to teach my family about how to segregate waste and keep them ready for disposal once the pickup pourakarmika comes. But they never come. I usually collect all my segregated house waste and put it on my vehicle. And travel to the garbage dump where all garbage vehicles are parked and dump them on the garbage truck.
I do that every alternate day until someday I become lucky and the guy comes whistling and asks for dry waste. The city has gone to people who don’t give a care about environment or cleanliness. The waste management of Bangalore is the worst in whole India. Sad but true. The govt doesn’t pay the pourakarmika enough to do their work and gives contracts who don’t clean but just take pics of working to claim their daily wages. Such is the shameful and corrupted state of Bangalore. On the other hand, Hyderabad did exceptionally good in cleanliness drive.
(Source: TOI)
Well, what do you think about this? Why Bengaluru didn’t make it to the list of cleanest cities in India. Let us know in the comments below.
