Thiruvananthapuram: urban local bodies fare poorly in Swachh ranking

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: When it comes to clean public toilets, urban local bodies (ULBs) in the district have fared poorly in the Swachh Survekshan Survey 2022.
The general rankings of ULBs in the district are not so hopeful at the state-level with none of the municipalities in the district figuring in top 10 in state rankings.

As regarding cleanliness of public toilets, Neyyattinkara is the lone municipality with a score of 50-75% while other ULBs Thiruvananthapuram corporation, Varkala municipality, Nedumangad and Attingal municipality scored either less than 25% or between 25 and 50%.
ULBs in the district have scored poorly in citizen grievance redressal as well with a majority recording score of less than 25%. The cities were assessed for segregated door-to-door waste collection, cleanliness of roads, public toilets, city beautification, cleanliness of market areas, residential areas, drains, waterbodies, daily sweeping in residential areas, non-availability of open garbage dumps and citizen grievance redressal.
Thiruvananthapuram corporation has been ranked third at the statelevel.
The civic body has recently identified 37 spots to construct public toilets in the city. The toilets have been proposed at major areas in the city like Secretariat, University College compound, Ayurveda College Junction, Palayam market, Public market, Museum compound, Kanakakunnu, PSC office, LIC office, East Fort, etc.
The civic body plans to work out a revenue generation model to run these toilets.
Upgradation of existing public toilets in Smart City area-based development area was proposed as per the Thiruvananthapuram Smart City Proposal under ‘Urban Basic Services’ module.