State misses top slots in Swachh Survekshan survey for third year in a row

Despite its noted sanitation and waste management strategies, Kerala has once again failed to meet the parameters and make it to the list of country’s cleanest cities in the Swachh Survekshan 2018 survey. With Indore, Bhopal and Chandigarh in the top three positions, the State could not clinch any of the 52 awards under various categories of the survey launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, under the aegis of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban).

It is for the third consecutive year that Kerala has been missing a good, if not reasonable, slot in the survey. Conducted between January and March this year, Swachh Survekshan evaluated 4,203 urban local bodies across the country with the help of 2,700 assessors, collecting around 37.66 lakh citizen feedbacks.

If the survey rated 73 cities having a population of one million or more, including capitals of States and Union Territories in 2016, it covered 434 cities in 2017. In Swachh Survekshan 2016, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode figured in the ‘Acceleration Required’ category and according to the report, the cities “need focused efforts to improve their sanitation, cleanliness, and hygiene.” On the list of 73 cities, the State capital and Kozhikode came in positions 40 and 44 respectively.

In the 2017 survey conducted in 434 cities, all Kerala cities were relegated to the lower slot with Kozhikode ranking 254 followed by Kochi (271), Palakkad (286), Guruvayur (306), Thrissur (324), Kollam (365), Kannur (366), Thiruvananthapuram (372) and Alappuzha (380).

According to experts, Kerala lost out to other States owing to some logistical issues and an incompatible ranking methodology.

“The per capita investment on waste management is very high for all big cities that top the list. Our corporations cannot afford that,” says R. Ajayakumar Varma, executive director, Suchitwa Mission.

Lack of land

He adds that land is not an issue for many northern and southern States whereas in Kerala it makes the most restrained resource. “We don’t have landfill sites and it is not easy sticking to their guidelines that require centralised treatment plants.”

Mr. Varma says Kerala has adopted a different strategy depending on its environmental conditions that are not in accordance with the criteria of the survey. “Alappuzha was recently recognised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as one of the top five cities in the world beating pollution. So it all comes down to their rating technique and the variables involved,” he says.