City ranks 161st, slips 42 notches

Swachhata Sarvekshan Placed on 10th position out of 14 major cities in state

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, November 22

After improving its ranking in previous Swachhata Sarvekshan (cleanliness survey), Jalandhar has again slipped in the rankings by 42 notches. As per the latest Swachhata Sarvekshan 2021, Jalandhar secured 161st rank. It was placed at 119th rank last year.

With this, the cleanliness performance of the city has also dipped in the state. It was fourth cleanest city in the state last year after Bathinda, Patiala and Ferozepur, but this year Jalandhar bagged 10th spot out of 14 major cities.

With 80 wards, the overall score of the city remained 2802.45 out of 6,000 in the Swachhata Sarvekshan results. The 2021 survey results came as a shock to the Jalandhar Municipal Corporation as cities like Abohar (105), Pathankot (106), Barnala (129), Ferozepur (136) and Moga (100) are far ahead in terms of cleanliness.

In the last survey, the city had improved its rank by securing 119th position since its previous three performances at 166th in 2019, 214th in 2018 and 233rd in 2017. The fallen back rank and the survey report indicate towards lapses in the waste management, pollution, open defecation and poor lifting of garbage.

Even as tall promises and commitments are being made to the people, the plant for waste management has not come up in the city despite proposals being made for over a decade now. Neither the concrete waste management plant has been commissioned nor is there any trace of bio-mining plant in the city which was to come up at Wariana village.

The Jalandhar Municipal Corporation topped in the paperwork, but on ground the garbage is piling up in the city. Machinery worth crores of rupees have been purchased which is getting rusted in its workshop.

Pit compositing also not much successful

The MC had started a project on pit compositing and was to go ahead with its plans to set up nearly 640 pits, but only 200 could be set up. Wherever these pits were created, the residents have had an issue and proper work to make manure and sell it could not be done.

Another hurdle in the project is that so far no waste segregation at source is being done and the dry and wet waste are being carried in the same cart by the garbage pickers. No education and trainings have been imparted to the residents for the past over two years. While earlier two bins for waste disposal had been distributed in some wards and demonstrations too had been held to show them the segregation process, but it remains forgotten now.

BOX: Parameters for ranking

Cities have been ranked based on largely three parameters — service level progress, citizens’ voice and certification. A maximum weightage of 40 per cent was given to segregation of waste at source, its processing and disposal. Citizen feedback carried weightage of 30 per cent and certification under the star rating protocol for garbage free cities also carried 30 per cent.

During physical survey, the teams had checked sanitation facilities, utilising capacity of wet waste processing facilities, treatment and reuse waste water, open defecation, availability of public and community toilets, etc. The ‘Citizen Participation’ feedback also contributes towards making the score. The citizen score remained 941.31.

Caption: The city is producing as much as 500 tonnes of waste daily, which is taken to a 14-acre site at Wariana. In 40 years, the site now has nearly 8 lakh cubic waste and huge mounds of garbage can be spotted from a distance. A tender to the tune of Rs 40 crore had been cleared, but nothing has happened on ground.