Rewari’s Swachhata rank drops, lack of waste disposal to blame

Ravinder Saini 

Rewari city had shown promise and commitment two years ago when its rank improved to 303 in the Swachh Survekshan-2017 from 469 in 2016. The development had instilled a sense of confidence among local municipal council (MC) officials who resolved to get Rewari city among the top 200 cleanest cities of the nation in the next survey. 

In 2018, the rank of the city improved further to 256 and district administration officials started making tall claims of a much better performance in the Swachh Survekshan-2019. However, in their enthusiasm they forgot to focus on establishing a proper system of door-to-door collection of garbage, its transportation and segregation in the city. Consequently, the rank of the city instead slipped to 266 this year. Even in Haryana, the district slipped to the 15th place in 2019 against the 14th position last year.  

“We are disappointed with the ranking of Rewari city in the Swachh Survekshan-2019, as everyone was expecting a better rank below 200 this time. District officials had claimed of having a better performance this year. In their overconfidence, they did not give necessary attention to fulfilling the vital parameters of the survey,” says Parveen, a resident of Rewari city.  

Vijay Kumar, another city resident, says, “How can you expect improvement in the rank when there is no arrangement for the collection of garbage from every household, its segregation and disposal. These are essential for a city to improve its ranking in the Swachh Survekshan but all these were missing in the case of Rewari”.

An MC official says that the survey team closely inspects the waste collection, segregation, disposal and recycling of garbage before awarding marks to a city. The MC has got land in Ramsinghpura village but a garbage disposal plant is yet to be constructed there. Also, there is no system for segregation of garbage for recycling, he adds. 

Notably, a team from a government agency conducted the survey in Rewari city for three days in January to ascertain the ground situation with regard to cleanliness, collection, segregation and disposal of garbage in the city, staff status, bio-metric attendance, vehicles available and other resources of the municipal council. It also received feedback on cleanliness and other points from local residents.

This year, 4,237 cities across the nation were included in the survey while 5,000 marks were fixed under four categories, each consisting of 1,250 marks. Rewari got 1,974.07 marks. 

Manoj Yadav, Executive Officer, Municipal Council claims the results of the survey would have been better had the tender for garbage management been floated in time.

Tender for garbage management could not be floated in time

Despite our sincere efforts, we could not ensure door-to-door garbage collection in all wards of the city, which adversely affected our ranking in the survey. Actually, a cluster system has been developed at the state level for collection, transportation, segregation and recycling of garbage. Rewari and Mahendragarh districts have been included in one cluster for which a tender for garbage management could not be floated in time. As a result, we could not obtain good marks in this category. — Manoj Yadav, Executive Officer, Municipal Council, Rewari