It has been all downhill for Bengaluru in the Swachh Bharat campaign, with the metropolis ranking an abysmal 210 among 434 cities. The drop is drastic, considering that it started as the seventh cleanest city in 2015.
While civic officials are defending the drop saying Bengaluru cannot be compared to smaller cities, the city has been ranked 51 among 72 cities with population of over 10 lakh.
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.
- Waste Processing and Disposal
- Open Defecation Free
“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.
During the survey for this year's rankings, none of the six compost-based waste processing plants were operational and most of the waste was being dumped in three landfills.
“As none of our plants were operational, the city scored zero out of 400 marks in that category,” conceded N. Manjunath Prasad, Commissioner, BBMP adding that they are working hard to make the plants operational.
However, this may not be enough.
The hurdles
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.
Ms. Kar pointed out that for the last two years, the civic body has been unable to attract bids for the new garbage collection tenders.
Not declaring any part of the city Open Defecation Free (ODF) has also hit rankings dearly. Of the 600 marks for ODF, the city has scored zero.
“Most of the core city areas (133 wards) are ODF. But they haven’t been declared so till date. We have only now begun the process. Once completed, it will improve our ranking in the next round,” said Sarfaraz Khan, Joint Commissioner, Health and Solid Waste Management, BBMP.
Bengaluru’s score: 968/2000
