Swachh Survekshan 2020: Ghaziabad slips six notches to land at 19th spot
Ghaziabad city slipped six position to finish at the 19th spot in Swachh Survekshan 2020 announced by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) on Thursday. On a state level too, the city slipped from the top position to third, with Lucknow and Agra gaining ground.
Ghaziabad was evaluated among other cities that had more than 1 million population.
“Overall, the city secured 4283.26 marks out of 6000 in the results announced on Thursday,” said Arun Kumar Mishra, accounts officer of the Ghaziabad municipal-corporation and the nodal officer for the survey. Lucknow secured 4728.28 points (nationally 12th rank) and Agra got 4391.51 (nationally 16th).
He said that the lack of a waste disposal facility cost them dearly. “That alone lost us about 500 points. Our only landfill site at Pratap Vihar (a composting plant at the site processed 300 metric tonnes of waste daily) closed down on directions of the National Green Tribunal in January, 2019. Ever since, we have not been able to find a permanent site for our solid waste disposal. Secondly, construction is yet to begin for the proposed waste-to-energy plant at Galand. At present we are only dependent on temporary sites for disposal of solid waste,” Mishra said, adding that the city lost its 3-star rating under garbage free city survey under the MoHUA and now had a 1-star rating this May. The district produces about 850-900 metric tonnes of daily solid waste per day.
Ghaziabad’s latest ranking was in stark contrast with its recent performances. In 2017, it was ranked 351 nationally, 36th (2nd in state) in 2018 and 13th (1st in state) in 2019.
A sign of things to come came in January with the the Swachh Survekshan 2020 league ranking where the city stoodl 32nd nationally in quarter 1 results and 30th in the quarter 2 results.
The survey, in its fifth edition, looked at four broad parameters – direct observation (DO) of ground level cleanliness by survey teams, citizens’ feedback (CF), service level progress in terms of provision of services to citizens (SLP) and certifications.
Overall, the Ghaziabad district bagged 1069.15 point in SLP, 700 for certifications, 1376 in DO and 1138.11 in citizen feedback. Overall, 1300099 citizens from Ghaziabad provided their feedback for the city during the Swachh Survekshan 2020.
However, the points bagged by the city were much higher than the state average of 2246.88 points and also higher than the national average of 2214.38 points under the category.
