Visakhapatnam: If Vizag city emerged as the fifth cleanest city in the country overnight, then credit should go to the hard work put in by the GVMC administration, say observers.
It has been a year of 3600 transformation of Vizag city from the 205th rank in 2014-15 to fifth in the 2016 Swachh Survekshan Survey, which also enabled it to enter the premium league of 20 Smart Cities. The survey, which was carried out in January, has thrown up some interesting insights into the sanitary facilities of the city.
Vizag secured first place by scoring 486 points in the ‘Independent Observer’ section of the survey, outdoing Mysore city which got the overall Number 1 place.
The city scored full marks in terms of strategy for being an open defaecation free town and for integrated solid waste management. This was so also with the ‘information, education and behaviour change communication activity’, in the Service Level Status section.
GVMC commissioner Pravin Kumar persevered to make the city fall in line with what was required after the huge devastation caused by Cyclone Hudhud in October 2014. He led from the front, drafting a supervised sanitation plan, procuring advanced sanitary machinery, rebuilding green cover, constructing more community toilets and seeing these projects through even if it involved being on the field from dawn to midnight.
Mr Kumar generously ascribed the success story to the sanitary staff of the GVMC and citizens of Vizag and said that he had only wanted them to aim for an even better rank in the future.
NGOs and students also helped clean up the city.
About 48 per cent respondents of the survey revealed that they were always able to find dustbins and 43 per cent said that the city was always clean. The survey team summed up the results after visiting markets, slums, unplanned and planned colonies, community and public toilets in the city. By scoring 1643 out of 2000 points in the survey, the city was categorised as ‘Leader’.
Scenic Vizag city finds new fans
Vizag city, known for its jaw dropping tourist spots to sprawling beaches, has recently found some celebrity fans, including Indian cricket team skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, star batsmen Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma.
Sportspersons visiting the city, right from Pro-Kabaddi to cricket matches, have been in awe of the city’s beauty.
Taking the social media route, the players have also been posting the photos of Vizag city and tweets praising the city.
“Off from Vizag, one of the city that I would love to live in, nice and beautiful landscape with beach and home to my first big innings,” reads the post of Dhoni on Facebook. Rohit Sharma, who has his maternal roots in Vizag, is all praise for the beauty of the city. “Clean water, clean roads = clean living” was the Twitter post of the Mumbai Indians captain in the IPL.
