Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) is banking on a slew of new initiatives, including waste water recycling, in its bid to reclaim the cleanest city tag from Indore in the forthcoming Swachh Survekshan 2021.
MCC Health Officer D.G. Nagaraj told presspersons on Monday that the city was already recycling 30% of its water and utilising it for secondary purposes such as gardening and fountain maintenance, and this is expected to shore up the city’s cleanliness quotient. The other initiatives include the launch of a local app that is expected to increase the citizen feedback score.
Swachh Survekshan has been further tweaked by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs this year. Apart from categorising cities and ranking them on the basis of their population, the cities will also be evaluated on the basis of various indicators such as percentage of waste segregation, quantum of waste processed, recycling of waste (both wet and dry), processing of construction and demolition debris, percentage of waste going into the landfills (the less the better), and sanitation status.
The lack of a C and D waste recycling plant was a major drawback for Mysuru all these years, but the government has already approved a project for this and Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) will expedite the transfer of land to establish the plant to take care of construction debris, said Gurudutt Hegde, Commissioner, MCC.
He said that the MCC would launch a drive from February 1 to clean the “black spots” in the city and take up a thorough cleaning and garbage clearance exercise. “Though the MCC clears garbage every day, covering all 65 wards of the city, the onus is also on citizens to ensure that they do not litter public places,” he said.
Mr. Hegde also said the MCC was already penalising people for littering, but it was not into policing of public behaviour. “It is more by way of appeals and creating awareness to ensure cleanliness,” he said.
Getting feedback
Dr. Nagaraj said Mysuru was not far behind Indore in terms of cleanliness and on certain parameters, including direct evaluation by third parties, Mysuru had scored higher. It was losing out only on the citizen feedback front, he said, adding that to improve this the MCC would take social media recourse and interact with NGOs and other stakeholders.
The low score when it comes to feedback from citizens was attributed to the lack of a local app for the MCC, which is now being addressed, according to the authorities, who also pointed out that the lack of Kananda in the Swachhata app for posting complaints and seeking resolution was a negative factor.
Unlike in the past, feedback from citizens will be collected till March 31 this year, while on-field validation will be held from March 1 to 28.
