Despite efforts by the administration to make the town garbage free and embarking on an ambitious mission of turning the town Open-Defecation Free (ODF) , Puducherry and Oulgaret Municipalities have been ranked 189 and 206 position respectively in the Swachh Survekshan rankings released by the Union Ministry of Urban Development on Thursday.
The Ministry’s Swachh Survekshan 2017, had surveyed 500 cities to rank them based on their progress under Swach Bharat Mission.
While last year the Ministry had limited the number of cities to 73, this year 500 towns places were ranked with the aim to foster a healthy competition for improving cleanliness standards.
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The criteria for this year’s ranking included 45 % marks for cities becoming open defecation free and solid waste management.
The evaluation done by the Quality Council of India for the Ministry has put Puducherry’s overall score at 1021 while Indore in Madhya Pradesh which topped the ranking list scored 1808.
On solid waste collection and transportation, the Ozhukarai (Oulgaret) Municipality scored 284 points while Imphal made the highest score of 360.
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The region scored an abysmal 36 points in solid waste disposal and processing when the national highest was 180 under the category.
Similarly, the city could notch up 60 points only while the national highest was 270 points.
The performance of both the municipalities (Puducherry and Ozhukarai) with just around 2.44 lakh population was an eye opener for the administration as it had brought to the fore the need for more concerted efforts to achieve Swachh Bharat Mission, an official with Local Administration Department told The Hindu .
“The fact is that apart from areas within Boulevard, we were not able to improve civic amenities,” he added.
Sunaina Mandeen of PondyCAN said that issuing notices to the public to segregate garbage alone would not keep the city clean.
The government, public, contractors, business community, experts and entrepreneurs should come together under one roof to work towards a holistic solutionm he said adding that the only way it could work was to prepare a master plan with short-term, mid-term and long-term goals.
(With additional reporting by S. Senthalir)