SHILLONG: Shillong is getting dirtier by the day, at least its Swachh Survekshan ranking points to the city’s poor waste management.
The city’s ranking, which was 53 in 2016, dwindled to 276 in the Swachh Survekshan-2017 commissioned by the Ministry of Urban Development in January-February.
The rankings were announced by the Minister of Urban Development M. Venakaiah Naidu on Thursday.
The survey is aimed at capturing the improvement in sanitation scenario, primarily based on making cities and towns open defecation free and improving municipal solid waste processing.
The Quality Council of India, which conducted the survey, deployed 421 assessors in 17,500 locations in 434 cities and towns. Another 55 persons regularly monitored the survey process in real time.
When asked to comment on the poor ranking, Urban Affairs Minister Ronnie V. Lyngdoh said, “We have to know on the basis of what parameters this ranking has been done.”
Criteria and weightage for different components of sanitation used for the survey is solid waste management, including door-to-door collection, processing and disposal.
The reports on cleanliness were evidence-based and assessors used geo-tagged devices.
Indore has emerged as the cleanest city. Itanagar has got a ranking of 216.
Altogether 14 states were represented in the top 50 clean cities with Gujarat accounting for 12, followed by Madhya Pradesh (11), Andhra Pradesh (8) and one each from Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Sikkim and Uttar Pradesh.
