Ludhiana stands at 34 among 47 in Swachh Survekshan

Ludhiana: The industrial town has been ranked 34 at the national level Swachhta Survekshan-2020. The results were announced on Thursday from a virtual platform. This ranking is out of 47 cities having a population from 10 to 40 lakh. Interestingly, in Punjab, only Ludhiana and Amritsar were contesting in this category and the industrial town is at 34th position while Amritsar ranked 39.
This time the criteria to judge the cities in the survekshan was changed as it was done on a quarterly basis. The cities were divided into parts on the basis of population. In the first quarter the city was at 40th rank while in the second quarter it was judged at 38th rank out of the 47 cities.
While in the initial years the competition used to be among a few cities as in the first year it was among 50 cities and gradually the number of cities increased. The officials claimed that it was not justified to rank a city with a population of 50,with another having a population of 10 lakh. So, it was a good step that cities are being judged on the basis of population. The idea is to encourage sanitation employees to work hard and also involve people in maintaining hygienic conditions in their city.
While reacting over ranking, cabinet minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu said, “Though the ranking has improved as compared to previous years but scope of improvement is always there. We need to work harder to achieve first place in the country.” He said there was a need to work on cleanliness of city roads, proper lifting of garbage from the entire city, double shift of sweepers in the city, etc. Ashu said they could achieve targets and this year the employees should work harder to gain better ranking.
Meanwhile, mayor Balkar Sandhu though showed satisfaction over the ranking and gave credit to the sanitation employees and officials who were involved in making arrangements, but he claimed that they should be aiming for a better ranking. He said they would want their ranking to be among the top 10 cities now.
The secretary of MC, Neeraj Jain, said it would encourage the residents to work harder in the respective fields and they would be able to achieve better ranks in the survekshan of 2021.
Previous rankings
2016-- 34 out of 73 cities
2017-- 140 out of 434 cities
2018--137 out of 485 cities
2019-- 163 out of 425 cities