With Swachh Survekshan 2020 just two weeks away, the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) is gearing up to do its best in the cleanliness survey. Having slipped from seventh to 23rd spot in the Swachh Survekshan 2019, the civic body has learnt lessons and is leaving no stone unturned to regain its past glory.
Awareness campaigns, rallies on sanitation, ban on single use plastic, source segregation, home composting and other activities are being organised. GVMC officials are conducting meetings in schools, colleges, colonies, rythu bazaars and public places to sensitise people about keeping the city clean. Resident welfare associations, social workers and self-help groups are actively being involved in the activities.
Civic officials conducted campaigns in various schools at Nakkavanipalem, Maddilapalem, China Waltair and other areas this week.
Aiming to better the rank in the coming survey, GVMC Commissioner G. Srijana has been reviewing the Swachh Survekshan programmes on a daily basis.
To keep a watch on sanitation, the GVMC Commissioner has instructed officials to make sure all the dump bins are cleared on time. Sanitary heads in the urban limits have been told to take pictures of the clearance of the dump bins and post them in the portal and GVMC WhatsApp pages.
"We have been involving people in various activities," said Ms. Srijana, adding that Swachh Surveskshan had become more integrated and complex. She said awareness campaigns were widely conducted both offline and online.
Segregation at source
According to GVMC officials, it was source segregation and a few other aspects, which affected the civic body in rankings last time. Focussing on it, the GVMC has taken help from several self-help groups associated with the civic body. It has taken an oath from SHGs to go for home composting techniques, aiming at reducing waste right at the source.
Social media campaigns
In a novel initiative, the GVMC promoted Swachh Survekshan 2020 by displaying placards "I Support Vizag" with former cricketers, during the second One Day International cricket match between India and West Indies at ACA VDCA Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy stadium on October 18.
Former Indian batsmen V.V.S. Lakshman shared his love for Vizag in a video. He said that he and his children love the R.K. Beach stretch. Apart from it, a video about Swachh Survekshan and Vizag’s fight to secure top spot is beeing widely circulated in social media sites. GVMC officials have been using Twitter and Facebook to reach out to more number of citizens and informing them about their daily activities.
Previous record
Visakhapatnam dropped from the seventh rank to 23rd in the last Swachh Survekshan survey, which was a major disappointment both for the denizens and the civic body. Earlier, the city stood fifth in 2016 and third in 2017.
GVMC officials say all cities have to compete for 5,000 marks, which are distributed evenly across categories such as certifications for garbage-free cities and open defecation-free cities, collection of data from online MIS portal of MoHUA as well as online submission of documents, citizen feedback and direct observation by the survey team.
The marks for each category is 1,250. In the last survey the city secured 3,744 marks out of 5,000.
The area of concern for the city is garbage collection and ODF, where it could secure only 914 marks and in online data collection the marks scored was just 600.
Plastic
According to Ms. Srijana, handling garbage, which includes huge quantity of solid waste comprising plastic, is a challenge. The treatment of solid waste is around 26%.
"Collection, segregation and disposal is the area that we are working on and hopefully we will have a permanent solution shortly," she said.
