Outgoing Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) Commissioner C.G. Betsurmath, who headed the civic body when Mysuru bagged the cleanest city rank twice in a row, said on Sunday that retaining the tag for the third straight year will be a challenge.
Dr. Betsurmath, who retired from service on Sunday, said MCC, including its pourakarmikas, had to work hard to emerge on top in the cleanliness survey carried out by the Centre — Swachh Sarvekhan — in both 2015 and 2016. “To retain the tag, we worked from 6.30 a.m. to 10.30 p.m.,” he said.
He said MCC always worked to inform and educate the public through various platforms and ended up ensuring 80 per cent segregation of waste. It also achieved 100 per cent door-to-door collection of trash, he said. “I am satisfied with the discipline I inculcated among the workforce and with the streamlining of the administration,” he said.
During his tenure as MCC Commissioner, which began on September 2, 2014, Dr. Betsurmath has been credited with making the city advertisement hoarding-free to a large extent. More than the drive launched by the MCC against the flexes put up by various political parties and its supporters, it is the civic body’s crackdown against advertisement hoardings that yielded results. With the city flooded with thousands of illegal hoardings, the civic body decided against issuing fresh licence and also stopped renewing existing ones from April 2015.
Shivakumar, former chairman of MCC’s Standing Committee on Town Planning and Improvement, pointed out Dr. Betsurmath’s role in removing illegal cycle stands from K.R. Circle and on Harsha Road, opposite Woodlands theatre. He also launched a campaign against use of plastic.
Many councillors acknowledged Dr. Betsurmath’s contributions to the city such as expediting the Raja Marga works and the construction of a multi-storeyed parking complex on the Town Hall premises. The construction of a replica of heritage circles on the lines of K.R. and Chamaraja Circles at Hardinge Circle recently, in memory of Sri Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar, the last Maharaja of Mysuru, was also carried out under his supervision.
