Cleanliness survey: Karnal city needs toilets to improve rank

Tribune News Service

Karnal, March 17

Karnal city has improved its ranking in cleanliness to 24th in the Swachh Survekshan-2019 from 41st in 2018. It has also bagged the cleanest city of Haryana tag for the last three consecutive years. However, the Karnal Municipal Corporation (KMC) still needs to do a lot to make it neat and clean.

The city, which has been included in the Smart City project, lacks public conveniences, which is a major challenge in improving the ranking further.

The civic body needs to remove unattended heaps of garbage at some dumping points, especially in villages. “The villages, which have been included in the Municipal Corporation jurisdiction, are awaiting a proper door-to-door waste collection mechanism, as heaps of garbage can be seen everywhere,” says Sukhdayal Mehla, a resident of Baldi village.

Besides, the city does not have public toilets in various markets, which are visited by hundreds of people every day. “We do not have any public toilet in the Sector 14 market and we have to use the toilet at Shri Krishna Mandir,” says Deepak Kumar, a shopkeeper of Sector 14 market.

Moreover, several public toilets are lying closed. The e-toilets are also in a neglected state. “The corporation got constructed toilets in various parts of the city, but several of them are lying closed, resulting in inconvenience to residents. The authorities concerned should ensure that all toilets are operated and cleanliness maintained there,” says Rohit Kumar, a local resident. He adds that the e-toilets should also be made functional.

Though the KMC has distributed around 85,000 dustbins to households, segregation of waste at the source is still a distant dream. The KMC should consider it as a challenge. “We have distributed dustbins, but still many people are not segregating waste,” says Dheeraj Kumar, Deputy Municipal Commissioner.

He says that there will be emphasis on door-to-door garbage collection and maintaining cleanliness of toilets. “We have improved our rank and also fixed a target to achieve the goal of the cleanest city of the country, for which we need people’’s cooperation. We will set up toilets in all markets and the contractor assigned the cleanliness work will be directed to take necessary measures to collect garbage from villages also,” says Renu Bala Gupta, Mayor.