Noida ‘ready’ for Swachh debut but asking rate tall, it must score fast

NOIDA: Open vats throwing stink bombs into the air, and garbage strewn on roadsides, cattle chomping on it. If this remains as common a sight in 2019 as it is now, Noida is unlikely to come out smelling of roses from the Swachh Bharat ranking survey in which it will participate for the first time.
The city, which has, surprisingly, failed to get its act together on garbage management despite being Uttar Pradesh’s mascot for housing and industry, has only a few months before its debut in the ranking exercise — SwachhSurvekshan. But the asking rate is steep.

The first goal is to build the platform, which is to set up a mechanism that takes garbage from homes to a dumpyard and treatment plant without the chain breaking anywhere. Officials say segregated waste collection is likely to begin by the end of November. The agency that will be handed the task has been finalized. Before that, an NGO will carry out an awareness campaign because waste segregation needs behavioral change to be successful.

Noida also hopes to improve on the public sanitation parameter by building 219 public toilets by September 20. Noida’s officer on special duty Rajesh Kumar, who has a crucial role in meeting the asking rate, is already batting positively. “We will be completely ready to participate in Swachh Survekshan 2019. And for this, preparations are under way beginning with staff training across different departments, to providing compost machines to RWAs and getting waste remediation done at storage sites across Noida.”

Omendra Srivastava, chief adviser and consultant to Noida Authority for the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) initiative, added, “EN Environment has been finalised as the agency that will carry out the job of door-to-door segregated waste collection.”

NGO Adarsh Seva Samiti will, meanwhile, try to make conditions more suitable for a good score by educating people on segregation and sanitation. “The NGO will soon begin its work via people-to-people contact as well as education through audio-visual aids,” said Srivastava. He added work on removing ‘dhalao ghars’ (open vats) will commence in the next phase.

Noida had on Thursday said it was preparing for the rankings exercise in 2019 after getting a go-ahead from the Union urban affairs ministry. Being an industrial city, Noida didn’t take part in the cleanliness survey in the first three years.