Garbage disposal a challenge still five cities bag national award

Ranchi: Five cities from state are set to receive awards in different categories under Swachh Bharat Mission survey 2019 at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi at an event which will be organised on March 6 by union ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA).
The cities selected for the awards under various categories are Ranchi, Chakradharpur, Gumla, Phusro and Chatra, a letter issued by joint secretary MoHUA and Mission director of Swachh Bharat Mission V K Jindal which was addressed to urban development secretary and State Mission Director (Urban) stated.

The announcement of award comes at a time when Ranchi is struggling with waste collection for over a fortnight as the company involved in waste collection had gone on an unannounced strike leaving the city with stink and garbage.

Speaking to TOI, Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) Medical officer Dr Kiran Kumari accepted that the whole city had turned into a garbage dump and RMC had to pull out all stops to clean the city after Essel Infra (company involved in garbage collection and disposal) had gone on an unannounced strike. However she welcomed the award and said: “It is always good to receive an award for city and it has been announced according to the survey conducted by the central teams which visited couple of months back.”

TOI spoke to a few citizens who face the brunt of the strike by cleanliness workers during the last fortnight and they weren’t happy with the announcement of awards.

“The dustbins are overflowing with garbage and it is being littered all over the road for the last week. Stray dogs are making the situation worse by dragging it into drainage and the drains are getting clogged,” said Sona Mukherjee a resident of ward number 2 in Kanke road.

“With garbage collection vehicles going off road the whole area is stinking for last five days and the chances of communicable disease have increased due to that,” said Priyadashi Ashok, a resident of Lajpat Nagar in Pundag.

Notably, Jharkhand had clinched top rank in ‘Best Performing State’ followed by Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh in Swachchhta Sarvekshan-2018. However, the awards this year has surprised the residents for sure.

State mission director for Swachha Bharat Mission (Urban) Ameet Kumar said: “The awards are based on the Survey protocol of Swachha Bharat mission which is evaluated on different parameters and consists of 5000 marks in total. I agree that there are a few difficulties in Ranchi on waste collection and disposal, however if union government have selected the cities in state they would performed better on other parameters and we can only conclude it once we get the detailed report.”