Dirty politics behind rubbish show in Chandigarh

CHANDIGARH: Politics, the dirty hurdle in implementing a solid-waste management policy, is behind city’s poor score on the sanitation, sweeping, and garbage segregation parameters of Swachh Survekshan.

A lobby of garbage collectors and sweepers that forced a pay-hike deal out of the broke civic body had the full backing of certain municipal councillors and local leaders. The garbage-collection contract carries huge benefits, so the collectors want to run things their own way with the support of people who go door-to-door actually. In every MC house discussion over solid-waste management, the contractors were spotted in the visitors’ gallery, indicating to some councillors to push their agenda.


After the city slipped from the third to 20th rank in the nationwide cleanliness survey, former mayor Davesh Moudgil put direct blame on the vested interests of some fellow councillors. BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) rebel Satish Kainth, who contested for mayor’s post, wrote to the current incumbent and municipal commissioner on Thursday to ask them to call a special general house meeting on waste management.

Kainth wrote: “We all know of the city’s massive slip in Swachh rankings. Read the newspapers to know why we went down in spite of a planned city. The MC commissioner took a few councillors and officials to Indore for studying its cleanliness model, but two or three councillors did not allow that best system of the country to come to Chandigarh. Continuously, they opposed the move in the MC meetings of September 2018. Being a responsible councillor, I request you to call an emergency meeting of the house.”