Saturday, 18 December 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
Considering most of the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Uttarakhand has performed poorly in two national-level cleanliness competitions- Safai Mitra Security Challenge and Garbage Free City (GFC) rating, the political parties should take cleanliness and sustainable waste management issues seriously and include them in their manifestos for 2022 state assembly elections. The social activist and founder of the Social Development for Communities (SDC) Foundation, Anoop Nautiyal said this on the poor performance of ULBs in the challenge and GFC rating competitions organised by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA).
The foundation recently started a campaign Uttarakhand Urban Agenda-2022 under which Nautiyal released his first factsheet on the basis of these competitions on Friday. As per his report, MoHUA launched Safai Mitra Security Challenge-2021 which was based on the efforts made to prevent hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks by Safai Karamcharis. Out of 72 cities that participated in the challenge under cities with the population of 3-10 lakhs category, Dehradun ranked 52 which is far below than average. Out of 82 cities that participated in the population of less than three lakhs category, six cities namely Roorkee at 33rd rank, Rudrapur at 40th, Rishikesh at 47th, Kotdwar at 73rd, Haldwani at 77th and Haridwar with 79th rank were included from the state. The latter three made it to the list of 10 worst performing cities under the same category. Overall, the state was placed at 14th position out of 20 states in this challenge as per the report. Nautiyal stated in the report that despite having 92 urban bodies, none of the cities in the state could score five-star or three-star ratings. Only Dehradun, Roorkee and Muni ki Reti were able to get the lowest one-star rating in the competition. He said that these figures are upsetting and indicate the deteriorating conditions of sanitation and waste management across the state. He asserted that it is crucial to put consistent efforts to work on the sustainable waste management front to improve performance in such parameters of cleanliness. He stated, “I hope that political parties will pay attention to this factsheet and give a place to sanitation and cleanliness in their manifestos so that we can be successful in making Devbhoomi clean and beautiful as per its name in the future.”
