Pune slips four places to 9th rank in Swach Sarvekshan 2022

This year, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has ranked 9th among the top ten cities in the country in the annual Swach Sarvekshan competition, dropping four places from the 5th position it had bagged during last year’s competition. According to the PMC however, it worked harder and better on the job of garbage management for this year’s Swach Sarvekshan and feedback from citizens might have hampered its rankings. Further, Pune has come in second among the cleanest cities in Maharashtra, thus maintaining its three-star ranking. While the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has moved to 19th place in this year’s Swach Sarvekshan and stood fourth among the cleanest cities in the state. The Swach Sarvekshan competition is organised every year by the central government among 45 cities with a population of more than 10 lakh.

Asha Raut, head, solid waste management (SWM), PMC, said, “We were well-prepared this time and we worked harder on all aspects of maintaining a cleaner, more- beautiful and sustainable city, and are working consistently on achieving this goal for 2023, even with the inclusion of the new villages in the PMC boundary. But this is a competition and we are still happy to hold the ranking in the top 10 as compared to PCMC which is at 19th position. It is important to retain the ranking in the top ten. We plan to analyse the report to see where we went wrong.”

“PMC has scored very well in garbage collection, assessment, transportation and in the field of implementation, but we may have lost some points in the first and second quarter during the on-call assessment which was part of the public survey,” Raut said.

According to activists however, it is a waste of taxpayers’ money where nearly Rs800 crore is spent on solid waste management every year.

Vivek Velankar, president, Sajag Nagrik Manch Pune, said, “The real question is whether our municipality will learn anything from the city of Indore which has bagged the first rank as the cleanest city in the country for the sixth time. Pune city has conducted many experiments in waste management which are only for the benefit of contractors. Twenty-five waste-to-power plants of 5 tonne capacity have been installed that have never generated much electricity and now, they have been scrapped. The PMC invested ten crore rupees in the project of composting in 24 hours, which was not possible anywhere in the world. We demand that the present municipal commissioner, who is quick to withdraw the income tax exemption available to Punekars over the years, should take responsibility for this declining rating, and draw up a white paper on the waste management expenses incurred in the last 20 years.”

While activist Qaneez Sukhrani said, “It is good that the survey reflects the reality. Pune is only concerned about its ranking in this year’s Swach Sarvekshan. There’s no actual work carried out for there are no field checks on data submission. Anyone who looks around at Pune today will be completely disheartened to see the uncollected and unsegregated waste dumped at public sites. The PMC has to take stringent measures internally as well as externally if the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 are to be successful.”