Drive to get three cities in top 50 list of Swachh Survekshn-2018

Clearing anti-littering and anti-spitting bill

Linking ACR report of officers with Swachh Survekshn-2018

Roping in district collectors to keep cities clean

DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand’s Urban development initiatives of Swacch Bharat Abhiyan have been identified as “Best Practices” by the government of India and are being circulated to all the other states for replication. V K Jindal, joint secretary ( Swacch Bharat Mission ) has written a letter to the Mission Directors (across the country) for Swacch Bharat Abhiyan and asked them to follow the initiatives undertaken by the Uttarakhand to keep their cities clean.Of the four major initiatives started by the BJP government of the Himalayan state is that Uttarakhand is aiming for at least 5 of their best urban local bodies under top-50 cities in the Swachh Survekshn-2018 ranking. The government is giving a cash reward of Rs Rs 75 lakh, Rs 50 Lkah and Rs 25 lakh to the cities, which obtain the top three positions in the cleanliness list.Secondly, to keep cities clean, the Trivendra Singh Rawat government has passed anti-littering and anti-spitting bull which imposes a Rs 5,000 spot fine on the violators. The move is aimed at checking the faults at the grassroots level and taking quick action.The annual confidential report of government officials concerned is linked with performance in Swachh Survekshan-2018. This would help the government officials keep a close tab on the developments and actively participate in the activities. District Collectors have been roped in to driver cities to perform better in Swachh Survekshan-2018.The letter further mentions, “You may kindly take note of the same and introduce similar policy decisions addressing critical issues in different components of Swachh Bharat Mission Urban. For further information on the above decisions taken by the Uttarakhand government, you may reach out to Shri Vinod Kumar Suman,” State Mission Director, Uttarakhand.Secretary to the CM, Radhika Jha said, “Competitive feeling amongs the urban local bodies will definitely motivate people to perform better. Mention of Swacchta parametres in yearly appraisal of officers in an institutional reform, initiated by our state only.”Another senior officer said, “The CM instructed for some innovative and positive measures to boost Swachh Bharat campaign in Uttarakhand. The state has already achived ODF state status for rural areas and we plan to achieve ODF status for urban areas by March 2018.”Key initiatives