Amritsar, Bhiwani among dirtiest cities, Chandigarh slips to 21st slot

Syed Ali Ahmed

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 9

The holy city of Amritsar, Palwal and Bhiwani have emerged as the dirtiest cities in the northern region in an assessment on cleanliness carried out by Union Urban Development Ministry. Chandigarh, Shilma and Srinagar are also on the list of dirtiest capitals in the Swachh Bharat rankings.

As per the rankings for the cities, Amritsar sits at 430th rank, Ludhiana 381 and Jalandhar 28. As far as the region’s state capitals are concerned Chandigarh has a rank of 21, Shimla 90 and Srinagar 152.

Based on the extent of open defecation and solid waste management practices, the city of Mysore leads the rankings. Mysore has topped the Swachh Bharat rankings of 476 cities in the country with three more from the Karnataka figure in the top 10. West Bengal does well with 25 cities from the state finding a place in the top 100 cities.

Thirty nine cities from the southern states are among the top 100 followed by 27 from the east, 15 from the west, 12 from the north and 7 from the North-East. Fifteen of the 27 capital cities surveyed figured among the top 100 performers, while five were ranked beyond 300. Bengaluru leads the list of capitals at seventh rank, while Patna came at the bottom at 429. Among the bottom 100 cities, 74 are from the north, 21 from the east, 3 from the west and 2 from the south.

Among the top 10 ranked cities Mysore leads the pack followed by Thiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu), Navi Mumbai, Kochi (Kerala), Hassan, Mandya and Bengaluru from Karnataka, Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), Halisahar (West Bengal) and Gangtok (Sikkim).

Damoh (Madhya Pradesh) came at the bottom of 476, preceded by Bhind (MP), Palwal and Bhiwani, both in Haryana, Chittaurgarh (Rajasthan), Bulandshahar (UP), Neemuch (MP), Rewari (Haryana), Hindaun (Rajasthan) and Sambalpur in Odisha at 467th rank.

All 476 Class-1 cities in 31 states and union territories, each with a population of above one lakh were surveyed for assessing total sanitation practices covering a set of parameters, including the extent of open defecation, solid waste management, septage management, waste water treatment, drinking water quality, surface water quality of water bodies and mortality due to water-born diseases, etc.

The survey conducted during 2014-15 was commissioned by the Ministry of Urban Development as required under the National Sanitation Policy of 2008.

Since the Swachh Bharat Mission is being implemented in urban areas with focus on construction of individual household, community and public toilets to eradicate open defecation and ensure door-to-door collection and disposal of municipal solid waste, all the 476 Class-1 cities have been ranked based on the data pertaining to these elements. This helps in assessing the present situation in these cities so that they can undertake necessary interventions to meet Swachh Bharat Mission targets in urban areas.

Over all sanitation rankings of these cities based on a total of 100 marks assigned to different parameters covering all aspects would be announced later. The Swachh Bharat rankings are based on a total of 42 marks, including 20 for open defecation indicators and 22 for solid waste management indicators.