Pondicherry Municipality ranked 258th out of 382 cities surveyed nationwide in the Swachh Survekshan 2020 report (1 – 10 lakh population category ). Ozhukarai/Oulgaret Municipality on the other hand fared much better coming in at 171 in the same category.
Swachh Survekshan is an annual survey released by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry that ranks urban local bodies in India based on cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation. This year it introduced a continuous assessment framework- Pondicherry Municipality scored a total of 2046.5 out of 6000 points while Oulgaret scored 2711.
Criteria for scoring
The rankings take into consideration various factors including door-to-door garbage collection, segregation of waste at source, wet waste processing, solid waste management, treatment and reuse of waste water, provision of social security schemes to sanitation workers and uplifting conditions of informal waste collectors.
The scores are calculated as shown below: direct observation by field assessors, citizen feedback and Swachh Bharat certifications all carry equal weightage.
Solid waste management and open defecation
Pondicherry & Oulgaret Municipality’s low scores are accounted for by 0 points in the Swachh Bharat certification criteria– neither municipality has a Garbage Free City (GFC) star rating or an Open Defecation Free (ODF) certification.
Garbage Free City certification assesses the progress of solid waste management in a city. ODF/ ODF+ certificates focus on construction and usage of toilets to stop open defection and sustainable use of community or public toilets.
To improve their standing in 2021, both municipalities have to focus on these two key areas. But both municipalities have bettered their 2019 rankings : Oulgaret ranked 344 in 2019 while Pondicherry ranked 298.
Pondicherry’s score is similar to the national average in the ‘direct observation’ category while Oulgaret exceeds this average. On the up side, both municipalities score 7-8 times above the national average in the citizen feedback category.
The survey that originally ranked 73 cities in 2016 has now grown to include 4242 cities under various population-based categories. Indore was judged cleanest city in India for the fourth year in running.
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FEATURE PHOTO: File Photo (2018) by Temple Reef Foundation
