The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) was on Thursday ranked third in terms of cleanliness out of 382 cities with a population between 1-10 lakh, according to the Swachh Survekshan 2020 report released by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry.
Last year, NDMC was ranked fifth among all cities surveyed in the annual status report brought out by the Ministry as a part of its Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban. This year, however, the Ministry has not released overall rankings, instead of categorising cities based on population alone.
While the categories based on population were introduced in 2019 for the first time, the exact groupings have been changed this year. In the category of all cities with over 1 lakh population, NDMC was ranked eighth and in capital cities, it got the top rank, the Ministry stated.
“Earlier, we got the first rank among 47 cities in 1-3 lakh population category. But this year, there were 382 cities in 1-10 lakh category and we got third. Since they changed the categories, we are also not able to compare,” an NDMC official.
Door-to-door collection
The NDMC said it was carrying out 100% door-to-door collection and processing of waste on a daily basis.
“No garbage goes to landfills and the entire waste is incinerated to produce power. All NDMC schools [middle and senior] have sanitary napkin vending machines. NDMC area also has 100% sewerage connectivity,” said NDMC.
In the National Capital Region, Gurugram ranked 62 in the same category, of 1 lakh to 10 lakh population, while Noida was ranked 25. Ghaziabad was ranked 19 and Faridabad 38 out of 47 cities with a population over 10 lakh.
On the other hand, the North and East Delhi municipal corporations were ranked among the lowest in the Swachh Survekshan report among cities with a population of above 10 lakh. The South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s (SDMC) position improved slightly from last year when it stood at 138, to this year’s ranking, 120.
The North body’s ranking dropped by nine points falling to 291 compared to 240 in the previous year. The EDMC’s ranking fell from 240 in 2019 to 323 in the latest ranking.
These civic bodies were ranked separately among 47 cities with a population above 10 lakh.
The EDMC stood at 46 while the North body at 41. The lowest-ranked city in this category was Patna, Bihar. The SDMC, on the other hand, was ranked at 31.
Senior SDMC officials attributed the civic body’s success to various efforts such as achieving ODF plus ranking, decentralised compost plants, remediation of dump sites, efforts to reduce the use of plastic and other interventions.
AAP lashes out at BJP
The Aam Admi Party attacked the rankings secured by the civic bodies by saying that the BJP, which was in power at all three corporations, had failed in their task to keep the city clean. They had “tarnished the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi”, said AAP leader Durgesh Pathak.