The civic body has blamed the ‘misplaced ranking criteria’ for its low ranking (194) in the Swachh Survekshan 2019.
“The break-up of the 5,000 marks of the Survekshan indicates how myopic the ranking is. We lost a 1,000 marks for a slight delay in declaring the city Open Defecation Free (ODF). The break-up has 500 marks for Swachh Bharat hoardings and advertising. As a policy, we have not put up hoardings, and lost all 500 marks,” said Sarfaraz Khan, Joint Commissioner, Solid Waste Management, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
He alleged that the Survekshan team, which visited the city, did not inspect any of the best practices Bengaluru has been implementing, such as the leachate treatment plant in Bellahalli quarry, 100% composting apartments, bins and reclaimed quarry pits.
“We have achieved a segregation-at-source level of nearly 40% – collecting around 1,200 TPD of wet waste and around 300 TPD of dry waste of the around 4,000 TPD waste generated in the city,” he said.
The BBMP has from the first year argued that large metropolitan cities, like Bengaluru, cannot be compared with tier 2, 3 and 4 cities. The Survekshan needs to categorise cities based on their population.
Swati Singh Sambyal, Programme Manager - Environmental Governance (Waste Management), CSE, concurred. “Swachh Survekshan 2019 considers 4,237 cities where population varies from one lakh to a couple of crores. The issues that a metro faces are very different to those that a small city, like Ambikapur or Mysuru, faces. They cannot be compared. It is high time the Survekshan categorises cities based on their population,” she said.
