People in cities laud new toilets, garbage collection

NEW DELHI: Indians have given a thumbs up to Modi government’ Swachh Bharat Mission with a majority of people finding access to toilets and improvement in their maintenance.

Swachh Survekshan 2017, an annual exercise conducted by Quality Council of India for urban development ministry to gauge the impact of Swachh Bharat Mission, has found that the sanitation condition of cities and access of toilets has improved in Indian cities. There is a positive perception about Swachh Bharat Mission in the cities with a majority of the people feeling that urban sanitation conditions had vastly improved.

ET has reviewed the initial survey reports prepared by QCI. Out of the 18 lakh people surveyed across 500 cities, 80% of the people were satisfied with the doorto-door garbage collection – a major component of Swachh Bharat Mission’s Solid Waste Management head. Almost the same number of people felt that availability of public toilets in urban spaces had gone up.

The flagship cleanliness initiative has generated a buzz in the urban centres, the survey report says. About 75% of the people surveyed expressed satisfaction with the maintenance of the public toilets. The annual survey was started last year by the ministry to foster a healthy competition between cities for improving cleanliness standards. Last year, 73 cities with 10 lakh population across the country were ranked in Swachh Survekshan. The exercise was expanded this year to cover about 500 cities.

Sources indicated that cities with very poor cleanliness rankings last year have tried to introduce major initiatives to improve their all-India rank. The top 10 rankings have remained almost the same. Last year, Mysuru was the cleanest city.

Cities were ranked on the basis of whether they were open defecation free, how they had brought about behaviour change, systems adopted for sweeping and door-to-door collection of waste, efficiency in processing of waste and construction of public and individual household toilets.