Bengaluru has been adjudged as the ‘Fastest Mover’ mega city in Swachh Survekshan 2021 while being ranked 28 among the 48 cities with a population more than 10 lakh.
Swachh Survekshan 2021 results were announced by the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry on November 20.
BBMP’s Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta, Special Commissioner (Solid Waste Management) Harish Kumar and Joint Commissioner (Solid Waste Management) Sarfaraz Khan received the award in Delhi.
This year, the city scored 3,585.56 points out of 6,000, which includes 1,933.1 in service level progress category and 1,152.45 in citizen voice category. The city has been certified as ODF++ (open defecation free), which yielded 500 points. However, it has not got any points under the Garbage Free City (GFC) certification.
In 2020, Bengaluru had scored 2,656.82 points and was adjudged best ‘Self-Sustainable Mega City’ (in the category of cities with population over 40 lakh).
The certificate received by civic officials.
Mr. Khan told The Hindu that the award is in recognition of the various measures taken for improving segregation at source and solid waste management practices. “We have several pockets within Bengaluru where source segregation is almost 100%, such as H.S.R. Layout and Koramangala. The welfare schemes for pourakarmikas, including uniforms and other benefits, have been recognised,” he said.
Stating that the award encouraged the BBMP to work towards a better ranking next year, he said the civic body would now work on areas where there are gaps. “We seem to be lacking in the area of citizen feedback,” he stated.
Sandya Narayanan, waste management expert, said Bengaluru had hit a little over the 50% mark this year. “In 2020, the ranking was given out of 4,000 cities. We had questioned the rationale of clubbing all cities, irrespective of the population size, together for the ranking, This time, the city is grouped with those with more than 10 lakh population. That’s why it is difficult to compare the ranking to that of last year,” she pointed out.
She also said that under certification, points are given only when there has been actual work on the ground. “Both Water Plus and Garbage Free City require a fair amount of rigour and work. We are not equipped for them right now, as we are still in the service level category improvement stage,” she added.
Concurring, V. Ramaprasad, waste management expert, said it is now time for the BBMP to assess and identify areas that need improvement. There are gaps in door-to-door collection, which was resulting in black spots. That apart, there is now a lot of focus and priority given to putting in place an integrated system with all civic agencies and utilities working together. This, he said, was still not in place in Bengaluru.
“For Water Plus, there should be no raw sewage in drains and all waste water should be treated. We are far from achieving this,” he said. Similarly, Swachh Survekshan requires digitisation and real-time monitoring of all processes of all streams of waste, which would include end-to-end processes. Another big component is the circular economy in waste management.
“The government has already established the Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Company. We also need a good expert committee that will work on integrating the efforts of all utilities and agencies. Right now, all are working in silos,” he said.
Score card
National rank: 28 (out of 48 ULBs)
State rank: 8 (out of 13 ULBs)
SS2021 score: 3,585.56 (out of 6,000)
· Service level progress: 1,933.1 (out of 2,400)
· Certification: ODF – 500; GFC – 0 (out of 1,800)
· Citizen Voice: 1,152.45 (out of 1,800)
