The city’s quarterly ranking under Swachh Survekshan 2020 (SS 2020) has stunned the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) which has averred that it is not a reflection of the overall standards of hygiene and cleanliness of Mysuru.
In the first quarterly survey for the period April to June, Mysuru was ranked 154th in the country while it was ranked 107th for the period July to September. The ranking of the 3rd quarterly is expected to be merged with the overall rankings to be announced later in the year. Among cities with population above 1 lakh and below 10 lakh, Mysuru was ranked 9th in the second quarterly rankings. Mysuru was ranked 3rd overall in the country last year and it was adjudged the cleanest city in India in 2016.
This is for the first time that the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has introduced quarterly survey for ranking of the urban local bodies and has not confined it to a single annual survey as was the case all these years.
According to MoHUA, the objective of the quarterly surveys – termed as SS League 2020 – was to sustain the performance on the cleanliness front and to ensure that the cleanliness standards are maintained throughout the year and not during the survey period only.
And here Mysuru has fared miserably if the rankings are any indication while Indore and Bhopal continued to be ranked among the top 5 cities consistently.
However, D.G. Nagaraj, Health Officer, MCC, averred that Mysuru had the infrastructure in place to outdo other cities whereas other cities that are ranked higher than Mysuru, were lagging in terms of attaining the cleanliness standards.
“Whether it is UGD, availability of public toilets, door-to-door collection of garbage, introduction of zero waste management or waste segregation at source, Mysuru has certain advantages which will come to the fore during the field survey and hence the quarterly ranking based on submission of Management Information System (MIS) documents cannot be a reflection of the ground reality’’, he said.
However, the MCC is not resting on its historical legacy of the infrastructure created by the erstwhile rulers of Mysuru who introduced UGD and water supply in the first half of the 20th century. “The legacy waste of the last few years, that amounts to nearly 2 lakh tonnes, will be tackled’’, he added.
The field survey will be held from January 4 to January 31 and the marks secured during the quarterly survey will receive 25 per cent weightage for the final ranking to be announced sometime during March/April. “It is only 200 marks out of 6,000 and the field survey will shore up our marks and ranking,” say the MCC officials.
For the SS 2020 field survey, there will be emphasis on citizens’ feedback as it fell short of marks in this area last year. Public awareness through street plays has already been launched while the pourakarmikas are working in shifts till 6 p.m. all of which, the authorities hope, will improve Mysuru’s overall ranking.
