After poor show, JMC gears up to boost swachh ranking

Jaipur: Fines for poor sanitation, littering, open dumping of waste will increase over the next few months said officials on Sunday as the city tries to improve its ranking for the next Swachh Survekshan survey.
Officials said that to improve waste collection system, tenders will also start this month for five zone of Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) Greater and installation of RFID tags in Malviya Nagar and Murlipura zones will be completed within the next 45 days.
“Our ranking has been poor, but we are continuously working to improve the cleanliness system in the city. One of the problems that we face is lack of support from public despite all efforts, which we will work on. More awareness drives will be launched in the city, and we will also rigorously start imposing fines on defaulters for cleanliness related offences. We have already collected over Rs 31 lakh of fines this year and we will work towards increasing this,” said Mahendra Soni,commissioner JMC-Greater.
The official also said that the new waste collection vehicles to be deployed in the five zones of JMC-Greater will mandatorily have location tracking system so that it can be monitored if the vehicles are reaching the localities. Officials also said that they will conduct a survey in the city to check for open defecation.
“The city has been declared ODF free but still there are areas where it might be practised, so we will conduct surveys with the sanitation teams to check what is the status in the city and make a plan accordingly,” added Soni.
In the central government’s annual cleanliness survey results released on Saturday,both JMC-Greater and JMC-Heritage performed poorly. The ranking of JMC-Heritage among 40 cities with a population over 10 lakh was 26th. Out of 7,500 marks, the corporation secured 4230. 96 marks. Meanwhile, JMC-Greater secured 32nd rank with 3,877. 28 marks.
Newly appointed mayor of JMC-Greater, Sheel Dhabai said, “When I was full time mayor, I had worked and made plans to ensure that Jaipur becomes a garbage-free city. I will work towards it again and have already started meeting with companies who are in-charge of waste collection system in the city.”