Visakhapatnam to face litmus test for cleanliness
GVMC commissioner M. Hari Narayanan requested the Vizagites to cooperate with the GVMC to bag the first rank.
Visakhapatnam: Come New Year, the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) will face a litmus test in the form of the Swachh Survekshan Survey-2017.
The results of the survey, which will kick-start on January 4, will be an indicator of the cleanliness and sanitation efforts of the urban local body. After Vizag emerged as the fifth cleanest city in the Survey in 2016, the city now looks like the real deal and the hopes are soaring high.
In order to foster a healthy competition among the cities for improving cleanliness standards, the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) has initiated the survey in 2016, rating 73 cities across the country. But this time, the number of cities participating in the survey has increased to 500 as has the competition.
The GVMC has been bracing for the survey for the last eight months and has drafted a sanitation plan based on the Survey guidelines. Turning things for the better, the GVMC was officially declared as open defecation free (ODF) about a week ago after it constructed more than 13000 individual toilets and community toilets. The recent initiatives such as waste-to-energy plant and a construction waste recycling plant, which are in one or the other phases of implementation, may also help the GVMC in the survey.
GVMC commissioner M. Hari Narayanan requested the Vizagites to cooperate with the GVMC to bag the first rank.
“People should segregate the waste at the source itself and hand it over in the form of wet and dry waste to the corporation. People should avoid open defecation and dumping waste into the drains. Banners and hoardings at the public places are a strict no as this would dampen the beauty of the city. People should use the Swachhata App as it will help in easier redressal of civic issues. Every citizen should complete at least 5 e-learning courses on Swachh Bharat,” Mr Narayanan added.
The survey mainly takes six sanitation factors into consideration, including road sweeping, garbage collection, transportation, disposal and processing, availability of public and community toilets and their maintenance, strategy for open defecation free city, behaviour change communication, etc.
Besides the information provided by the ULB (for 900 marks), the external team will collect data from direct observation and independent assessment regarding sanitation, waste management and others.