Pune city ranking drops

Pune: Despite appointing private agency and paying it Rs 35 lakh in order to bag the first rank to improve the ranking of Swachh Survekshan (cleanliness survey), Pune’s rank has dropped to new low. 

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs declared the results of  Swachh Survekshan-2019 on Wednesday. Pune has secured the 37th rank as compared to last year’s 10th rank. This has happened even after the Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) top bosses had made it mandatory for each official to submit feedback about the survey.

Pune got 37th rank which is one of the lowest ranks it has ever gotten in the survey since it started. 

This year, PMC Commissioner Saurabh Rao had taken a personal interest in making Pune number one. The civic body had even appointed a  private firm to improve its ranking in the survey by preparing proper documentation and creating awareness on social media.
 
Last year, even when different political parties were conducting agitation demanding to solve the garbage problem, PMC bagged the 10th rank in Swachh Survekshan. In 2017, the city bagged 13th rank while in 2016, Pune got 11th rank.

City Mayor Mukta Tilak said, “We are also surprised by the result. We implemented many good concepts, but I think, due to lack of proper documentation work in Swachh Survekshan, our rank has gone down.
 
Another thing, there is a lot of development work going on in the city and the same is leading to debris getting accumulated in the city. It may be another reason. We will investigate and take appropriate action against the responsible persons.” 

Opposition leader Dilip Barate from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) said, “It is a failure of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They have to take responsibility for this.”

PMC’s Joint Municipal Commissioner of Solid Waste Management Dnyaneshwar Molak said, “We are shocked with the result. We have got maximum marks for the field work. However, we lost a battle on the documentation side. Now, we are evaluating our work.”
 
“We are on 14th rank in cities having more than 10 lakh population, whereas we are on 37th rank among all municipal corporations,” he added.
 
The government claimed that it was the first paperless survey with entire data collection from urban local bodies done online. This year, the certification of both ODF, garbage-free star rating status were introduced as the fourth data source.  This year, the government had included many more indicators which required direct involvement of citizens.

Pune Ranking from 2016 to 2019 

• Year-2016    11
• Year-2017    13
• Year-2018    10
• Year-2019    37

Highlights of Swachh Survekshan-2019

• 64  lakh citizens gave feedback during the survey 
• 1.58 crore complaints registered 
• 1.57 complaints resolved on Swachhata App
• 18,329 garbage vulnerable points transformed 
• 345 landfill sites have been remediated 
• 370 cities are practising segregation at source 
• A first paperless survey conducted 
• The survey conducted across 4,237 cities within 28 days

Pune ranking details on basis of total score - 2019
City    Pune
Rank    37
Part-1 Service level (1,250 marks)    844 
Part-2 Certification (1250 marks)    550
Part-3 Direct observation (1,250 marks)    1,137
Part-4 Citizens’ feedback, Swachhta App (1,250 marks)    915
Total marks (5,000)    3,446