City Pulse

Lack of public dustbins became one of the main reasons for India's IT capital to suffer a steep fall in the latest Swachh Bharat cleanliness rankings announced by the Ministry of Urban Development. The city holds a dismal 210th rank among 434 Indian cities. 

Among the 73 towns and cities that participated in the survey last year, Bengaluru ranked 38. 

The city's failure to declare itself 'open-defecation free' was another reason for its poor performance in the rankings. Smaller cities such as Bagalkot in North Karnataka, Hyderabad in Telangana and Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu have done much better. Indore is ranked first, followed by Bhopal at number two. Mysuru, which topped last year, has slipped to fifth place. 

BBMP Commissioner’s reaction

Reacting to Bengaluru’s drop in ranking in the Swachh survey, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner Manjunath Prasad in an interview with The New Indian Express said, open defecation and waste processing as the main reasons for the low ranking. He said last year the city ranked 38 out of 75 cities. “One should not consider the drop in rank from 38 to 210. Most cities out of the 434 have a population of 50,000 to 1 lakh and up to 10 lakh. It is not fair to compare cities with a population of 50,000 to 1 lakh with Bengaluru whose population is 1.2 crore,” he said.

He explained that the survey was scored for 2,000 points — 800 for waste collection and sweeping, 400 for waste processing, 600 for open defecation free, 100 for awareness and 100 marks for capacity building. The city’s score was 968 while Mysuru with a score of 1,743 came in fifth.

Reasons for drop

The abysmal drop was a clear reflection of non-implementation of the intent and the misuse of waste processing infrastructure that fetched higher rankings in the last two years, say solid waste management experts.

“The city has the best waste processing infrastructure and a clear road-map for segregation. But there seems to be a lack of will to implement the road-map. We have gone back to dumping waste in landfills. This has frustrated both those who are segregating waste and other people working in the space,” says Kalpana Kar, member, SWM Expert Committee, BBMP to The Hindu.

N.S. Ramakanth, another member of the SWM Expert Committee, said despite several appeals, the civic body has been lax in penalising citizens who do not segregate waste and those who dump waste on the streets. “The clean up marshals scheme to ensure segregation is also yet to be implemented,” he said.

“There are over 1,500-2,000 black spots in the city which sport piles of uncleared garbage. Garbage has become Bengaluru’s nemesis with both civic and citizens failing the city for decades now,” said V. Ravichandar , urban expert and member of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force in a interview to Livemint.

BBMP's Way Forward

BBMP commissioner held a review meeting and the Palike has decided to put an end to the scourge of open defecation across the city in one year.

 There were 600 points alloted for open defecation prevention and Bengaluru lost all the points. Only 68 out of 198 wards had submitted proposals to end open defecation that met QCI standards. The other wards did not present any proposal. The proposal attested by the corporator should have the signature of students of at least five to six schools in the ward.

Prasad had given directions to his subordinates to ensure that each ward has its proposal in order by next year. Officials attending the meeting told the commissioner that construction workers who migrate to the city from other places are a major challenge in overcoming the problem of open defecation. These workers were held responsible for open defecation, they said.

BBMP joint commissioner (health) Safaraz Khan said, “We will make sure that there are toilets for construction labourers at construction sites.” He added that the Palike has decided to construct around 36,000 toilets across the city. Further, the BBMP has decided to improve its solid waste management. He said at the time of the survey, scientific waste processing units were not functional and there was huge pile-up of refuse derived fuel.

The bills put up illegally on public walls and other places too contributed to the poor ranking in the Swachh Sarvekshan. 

Areas of Evaluation

Waste collection, sweeping and transportation - 40% weightage
Waste segregation at source is yet to take off in many parts of the city. There are complaints that the civic body has gone back to collecting unsegregated waste. Civic authorities seem to have failed in scientific disposal too. Though sweeping is done in many parts, it is primarily restricted to the Central Business District.

Solid waste processing and disposal - 20%
Activists have blamed even citizens for failing in their responsibilities. Though cities like Mysuru generate revenue by recycling, Bengaluru is yet to introduce any such initiative. Moreover, the continuous discharge of effluents into lakes has hampered the process.

Information,  Education and Behaviour Change - 5%
The section involves generating public awareness about the necessity of waste segregation and clean surroundings. The city lacked poorly in the aspect too, scoring zero out of 50.

Capacity building - SBM e-Learning portal - 5%
In the rating provided in the survey, the city received a dismal zero in the category. Vijayapura tops the state in the category, equalling the national maximum of 45 out of 50.

Open defecation free or toilets - 30%
The number of toilets in the city is well below international standards. The lack of availability of toilets has resulted in stinky bus and railway stations in some areas.

Sanitation Ranking of Cities/Towns in Karnataka

Mysuru-5, Mangaluru-63, Udupi-143, Shivmogga-147, Mandya-148, Tumkuru-152, Gadag Betagiri-167, Hubbali-Dharwad-199, Bagalkot-203, Bengaluru-210,  Bhadravati-217, Ranebennur-220, Chikmagalur-225, Hasan-227, Belgavi-248, Bellary-283, Davanagere-288, Kalaburgai-294, Vijayapura-312, Bidar-315, Hospet-317, Raichur-328, Chitradurga-337, Robertsonpet-347, Kolar-373, Gangavati-381, Badami-388

Some Interesting Facts

1) The Sample size was 18 lakh and 434 cities and towns were surveyed for Swachh Survekshan 2017.

2) Over 83 per cent people from 434 cities and towns across the country feel their areas are much cleaner than last year.

3) Around 82 per cent of the respondents reported an improvement in sanitation facilities like the availability of litter bins and door-to-door collection of solid waste.

4) As many as 80 per cent of the respondents claimed that there was better access to community and public toilets, an official release said.

5) Around 75 per cent residential areas in 404 cities and towns were found substantially clean; the surroundings of railway stations were entirely clean in 185 cities and 75 per cent of community and public toilets were found to be ventilated, well-lit and had water supply.

6) Door-to-door collection of waste was being carried out in 80 per cent of wards in 297 cities and towns and sweeping was being done twice in 75 per cent of notified commercial areas in 226 cities and towns.

7) The survey said that vehicles transporting solid waste were being tracked in 166 cities and towns through technology like Global Positioning System (GPS) and Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID).

8) Besides, the sanitation staff vacancies were reduced to less than 10 per cent in 227 cities and towns and Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-based systems like biometrics were being used for monitoring attendance in 158 cities, the release said.

9) The survey also brought out the need for making the community and public toilets more gender, child and differently-abled friendly.

10) The Quality Council of India (QCI) conducted the survey. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is the nodal ministry for the QCI.

Article courtesy: The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Livemint, Economic Times, India.com, Deccan Herald