73 ULBs gear up to excel in Swachh Survekshan beginning today

HYDERABAD: As many as 73 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) across the State gear up for ‘Swachh Survekshan 2019’ which will kickstart on Friday. The Telangana Director of Municipal Administration (DMA) department has taken up several initiatives for the implementation of solid waste management, sanitation,  in the State for getting a better ranking than the previous year surveys.

Launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) under Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) in January 2016, the SS-2019 is conducted to rank the cities on various sanitation and cleanliness parameters with an intention of enthusing cities with a spirit of healthy competition towards the concept of  ‘Swachhata’. The survey will be conducted in as many as 4,379 Urban Local Bodies across the country. DMA director T K Sreedevi told Express that many ULBs were expected to perform better this year as DMA department has taken several initiatives towards improving sanitation and cleanliness in ULBs across the state.

ULBs were authorised to procure Swachh auto tippers under Driver-cum-Owner programme for door-to-door collection of segregated waste. Dry Resource Collection Centres have been established to handle dry waste in ULBs. DMA has conducted a number of training programmes to build up the capacities of ULB functionaries.

SS surveys

In the first round of SS-2016 survey, 73 cities across India with million plus population participated.. Hyderabad (Rank-19) and Warangal (Rank-32) were the only two cities which participated from Telangana.

SS-2017 was scaled up to cover the cities with a population of one lakh and above and 12 cities from Telangana made entry to the SS list. GHMC (Rank-22), Warangal (Rank-28), Suryapet (Rank-30) and Siddipet (Rank- 45) secured ranks at national level amongst those cities participated from Telangana.

SS-2018 conducted across 4,203 cities which became the largest ever Pan India sanitation survey in the world impacting around 40 crore people. Nearly 73 cities from Telangana participated and 21 cities bagged ranks below 100 out of 1,113 cities of South zone.

Siddipet stood first in the south zone with Bhongir ranking third, Sircilla fifth, Peerzadiguda sixth and Boduppal ranking eighth.The survey indicators will carry a total of 5,000 marks as compared to 4,000 marks in SS-2018.

Awards galore

Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation was awarded India’s best capital city in solid waste management. Siddipet was also awarded the Cleanest City in South zone, Peerzadiguda as the Best City under Innovation and Best Practices category and Boduppal for the Best City in Citizen Feedback