MCJ up by 19 points

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 23

From the 234th position on the Swach Bharat Sarvekshan in 2017, the Jalandhar MC has marginally bettered its position, making it to the 215th spot on the Swach Bharat Sarvekshan 2018 list.

While the MCJ had made it to the 28th position on the first Swachh Sarvekshan held across 73 cities of the country in 2016, the city had dropped to the 234th position across 434 cities which were surveyed under the Sarvkshan in 2017. However, in Swachh Sarvekshan Survey 2018, the city has made little improvement going up 19 spots.

While the lack of sanitation workers and lack of proper agenda for the treatment/recycling of solid waste are among the major grouses which make the city languish on the swachhta front every time, despite repeated proposals there isn’t much improvement on the garbage collection and disposal front either on a city which generates as many as 500 metric tonnes of garbage per day.

Dumps dotting a plethora of areas – some rendered a chronic eyesore among residents due to years of negligence and inaction – are a seething issue on the swachta front.

While the agenda for the house meeting this Monday, includes proposals for the recruitment of 200 safai sewaks, as well as the confirmation of a garbage recycling unit to be set up at Wariana – the later is also an already embattled proposal – with the area councillor already having expressed his intention to not let it come up. Barring these sewerage woes dotting various areas of the city are also both a cause of city losing out on swachta points as well as also a reason why the MC earns the wrath of the health department every season that there are outbreaks. If one adds to this the additional load which shall be caused by the delimitation – which has added on to the MC ward-baggage by at least 20 additional wards – and a number of rural areas – it creates one whole mess the MC will have to meet efficiently address point by point if it ever wants to see itself faring gloriously on both the Swachta Sarvekshan and Smart City lists.