A Clean Miss

The new Swachh Survekshan ranking promotes cities with poor waste management practices.

- Swati Sambyal

INDORE, ACCORDING to the rankings released by the Ministry of Urban Development on May 4, is the cleanest city in the country. This is despite the absence of a solid waste processing facility or waste segregation at source in the city. Indore is not an aberration; most of the top 50 cities featured in the Swachh Survekshan rankings share a similar story. Worse, cities with good waste management practices feature really low in the annual rankings. “The ranking of some of the cities surprises me because I have visited them and they do not have much to show except that there is no litter on the streets,” says Bharati Chaturvedi of environmental non-profit Chintan.

Experts say flawed parameters have marred the rankings. The government invited 500 cities that are enrolled under the amrut scheme to participate in the rankings, of which 434 participated. amrut was launched in June 2015 to establish the infrastructure that will ensure robust sewerage networks and water supply for urban transformation. In last year’s survey, only 73 cities were ranked.

The ranking awards weightage on the basis of six heads: municipal solid waste collection and transportation (40 per cent weightage), processing and disposal (20 per cent weightage), condition of public and community toilets, and open defecation (30 per cent weightage), and capcity building and behaviour change (10 per cent weightage). The cities have been marked on a scale of 2,000 points, of which 900 points have been allocated on the basis of answers submitted by the municipal bodies. Another 500 points have been allocated to be awarded by a team of assessors who have physically inspected the cities. The remaining 600 points have been allocated to be awarded according to citizen feedback collected through telephonic conversations and through questionnaires submitted online and on a mobile application.

The central problem