In hygiene, God’s own cities take a tumble

Of the 434 cities surveyed, Kozhikode, at 254th slot, is the cleanest in State

Cities in Kerala have slipped to abysmally low positions on the list of clean cities of India, which was released by the Ministry of Urban Development on Thursday. To make matters worse, four Kerala cities are there in the bottom 100, the hall of shame.

Of the nine cities surveyed this year under Swachh Survekshan-2017, the best ranked Kerala city was Kozhikode which was rated the 254th cleanest among the 434 Indian cities surveyed.

At the bottom

The fall from grace was complete for Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, which were ranked as the fourth and eighth cleanest cities respectively during the 2014-15 survey conducted by the Ministry. This time, Kochi was ranked at 271 and Thiruvananthapuram slipped further down the line and ended up at 372th position.

While Palakkad came at 286th position, Guruvayoor ended up at 306, Thrissur at 324, Kollam at 365 and Kannur at 366. Alappuzha ended up at 380, the lowest ranked city in the State.

Kochi’s plight

Indications of Kochi’s decline were ominous during the previous year too as the city slipped to 51st rank then. It was the abysmally low number of public toilets that pushed the city to the list of unclean cities.

The poor rating of Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, the two former best performers, have become indicators of the poor sanitation facilities in these cities.

Cities were ranked on the basis of solid waste management facilities, access to sanitation, capacity building and monitoring systems, on-site observations, citizen feedback and their performance on open defecation-free drive.

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