NEW DELHI: Alappuzha had missed the Centre’s survey on cleanliness - Swachh Survekshan-2016 - due to population criteria and so the government ranking in January, but this small city of Kerala along with Goa’s Panaji and Karnataka’s Mysuru on Monday emerged as the first three cleanest cities in India in a different survey - conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).The Delhi-based environment think-tank, CSE, has ranked these three cities along with 11 others on the basis of the way they manage their solid municipal waste. The country’s capital Delhi has appeared at the bottom of the list of 14 along with Chandigarh and Bengaluru.The CSE survey found that the cities, figured at the bottom, like Delhi, Chandigarh and Bengaluru have managed to remain clean, but only by sweeping their garbage under the carpet.“Dumping waste in landfills is not a solution. These cities must learn to process waste”, said the CSE’s report on solid waste management in Indian cities, titled ‘Not In My Backyard’, released here on Monday by the Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu.This survey is different from the UD ministry’s January survey that took into account the components of ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’ like construction of toilets, solid waste management and independent observation while coming out with its ranking.Fifty-three cities with a population of above 10 lakhs each and 22 capitals that do not have that much population were selected for the survey. Mysuru, Chandigarh, Tiruchirapalli, New Delhi Municipal Council, Visakhapatnam, Surat, Rajkot, Gangtok, Pimpri Chindwad and Greater Mumbai had emerged as the top 10 cities in terms of sanitation and hygiene in the government survey.The CSE survey was, however, limited to 14 cities, It tried to find out what actually makes these cities clean and how the best practices would act as a guide for future policy.“What is absolutely clear to us as we researched for this report is that technology for waste disposal is not the problem. The problem is two-fold. One, households and institutions are not responsible for management, through segregation or payment of the waste they generate. Two, there is an absolute collapse of financial and institutional (human) capacity and so accountability in our municipal systems,” said Sunita Narain, director general of the CSE.She said, “In this scenario, the best option is what we have found in Kerala, where municipalities have withdrawn from the waste business. People segregate and compost; informal recyclers collect and sell. This is perhaps the most exciting model for future waste business in the country. And even if it cannot be emulated completely, it holds important lessons for other cities”.Asked how did the think-tank select these 14 cities for its survey, Swati Singh Sambyal, senior research associate (waste management) of the CSE said, “We had first solicited nominations from people and environmentalists on cities they think are managing their wastes well. Once the list of nominations was ready, researchers visited these cities to comprehensively analyse their waste management practices”.Handling of solid municipal waste is going to be a big challenge, considering the amount of waste being generated in the country. In 2009, the department of economic affairs’s position paper on solid waste management had projected India would be producing 260 million tonnes of waste annually, needing over 1,400 sq km of landfills, by 2047. This is an area equal to Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai put together."As India becomes more literate and politically aware, most cities are encountering stiff resistance when they attempt to dispose of waste in somebody else’s backyard. In Pune, Bengaluru, Panaji, Alleppey and Gurgaon, village communities have been up in arms against the dumping of waste by a neighbouring city. This resistance will continue to grow. Cities are also finding it difficult to secure ‘environmental approval’ for their landfills”, said the CSE deputy director general Chandra Bhushan.