Poor performance of Uttarakhand in ‘Safai Mitra Security Challenge’ and ‘Garbage Free City Rating’, a major concern

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Poor performance of Uttarakhand in ‘Safai Mitra Security Challenge’ and ‘Garbage Free City Rating’, a major concern 

SDC Foundation releases its first factsheet on ‘Uttarakhand Urban Agenda-2022’ as a part of Urbanization Agenda for the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections in Uttarakhand

Dehradun, Dec 17

Uttarakhand has performed poorly in two competitions related to cleanliness conducted recently at the national level by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). These competitions include ‘Safai Mitra Suraksha Challenge 2021’ and ‘Garbage Free City’ ratings. With reference to these competitions and ratings, Social Development for Communities Foundation (SDC) has released the first factsheet of ‘Uttarakhand Urban Agenda-2022’ as a part of urbanization agenda for the upcoming Vidhan Sabha elections in Uttarakhand.

According to Anoop Nautiyal of SDC Foundation, a Dehardun based research and advocacy organization, their foundation had recently informed about launching the Uttarakhand Urban Agenda-2022 campaign. Under this campaign,  fact sheets will be issued on various urban issues in the state. The data based factsheets will be shared extensively with political parties so that they can give proper place to the key issues of sustainable urbanization and waste management in their manifestos.

Anoop Nautiyal said that the first factsheet is based on the data of two national level competitions conducted on cleanliness. The first competition was launched by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on November 19 last year on the occasion of World Toilet Day. Named ‘Safai Mitra Suraksha Challenge-2021’, this challenge was based on the efforts made for the safety of the Safai Karamcharis doing hazardous work like cleaning sewer and safety tanks. In this challenge, 72 cities across the country were included in cities with a population of 3 to 10 lakhs. Dehradun, the only city in Uttarakhand, was included in it. Out of 82 cities with population less than 3 lakhs, 6 cities of Uttarakhand were included.

Uttarakhand Performance

Uttarakhand has got 14th rank out of 20 states in the Safai Mitra Challenge.

Dehradun was ranked 52nd out of 72 cities with a population of 3 to 10 lakhs, which is far below the average.

Among the 82 cities with a population of less than 3 lakhs, Roorkee ranked 33rd, Rudrapur 40th, Rishikesh 47th, Kotdwar 73rd, Haldwani 77th and Haridwar 79th. That is, 3 cities of Uttarakhand are included in the list of 10 worst performing cities with a population of less than 3 lakhs.

Similarly, in Garbage Free City Rating, cities were rated 5 star, 3 star and 1 star on the basis of various parameters. No city in Uttarakhand has been successful in getting 5 star and 3 star ratings out of 152 cities in the country. Despite having 92 urban bodies, only three cities of Uttarakhand namely Dehradun, Roorkee and Muni ki Reti could achieve 1 star rating.

Need for continuous efforts

According to Anoop Nautiyal, the poor ranking and rating of the cities of Uttarakhand in two important national level cleanliness competitions is worrying. There is an acute need to work on all elements on the sustainable waste management front. This requires continuous effort. It is only by improving at several levels that Uttarakhand will be able to improve its performance in the parameters of cleanliness and this requires political will along with extensive and continuous planning on cleanliness.

Anoop Nautiyal expressed hope that political parties will pay attention to this factsheet and give a place to sanitation and cleanliness in their manifesto, so that in the coming time we can be successful in making ‘Devbhoomi’ clean and beautiful as per its name.