Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India under R.N.I 53640/91
Vol. XXVIII No. 5, June 16-30, 2018
Time to team for a cleaner city
by A Special Correspondent
It is disappointing that Chennai City, which was 235th out of 434 cities of India in the 2017 Report of Swachh Survekhsan by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), has failed to improve upon its ranking in the 2018 report covering 4041 cities. The full report for 2018 is yet to be released, but, when released, it would only help us to know why we failed and not whether we did.
A scientifically designed tool kit for the Survey also doubles up as a detailed guideline for action by public agencies at local and control levels to raise and maintain cleanliness standards. The surveys of 2014 and 2017 show that of 434 cities covered only three cities each in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh and each one in Karnataka and Kerala were within first 30 ranks – and only one each within the first ten. Mysuru consistently retained its first rank in 2104 and 2016 and ranked as the fifth cleanest city in the country in the 2018 Report. Andhra Pradesh has the distinction of being the most responsive among the southern states, with three of its cities moving upwards from report to report – Vishakapatnam moving up from 44th rank to 5th, Hyderabad from 50th to 19th and Vijayawada from 46th to 23rd. Tamil Nadu has nothing similar, to claim. Trichy and Coimbatore are within the first 20 ranks but Chennai, as the capital of the State, is nowhere.
The main components for swachhata are collection and transportation, processing and disposal and sanitation as indicated by prevalence of open defecation. Efficient handling of these operations has been spelt out step by step. An interesting feature of the survey is that the outcome is evaluated by independent field observations and citizen feedbacks, not by relying only on collected numbers.
Plastic in solid waste poses a problem in solid waste disposal. According to The World Economic Forum study, if plastic pollution continues to rise, oceans will have more plastics than fish by 2050. India’s contribution to plastic waste that is dumped into the world’s oceans every year is a massive 60 per cent. The country generates around 56 lakh tonnes of plastic waste annually. Chennai generates 429 tonnes of plastic waste per day, which is nearly 10 per cent of total municipal solid waste.
To reduce this menace, the National Green Tribunal suggested a ban on disposable plastic such as cutlery, bags and other items. Sweden has run out of trash and is asking other countries for their garbage to keep its recycling plant running! Sweden has tackled the pollution at source by organising awareness campaigns. Less than one per cent of waste from Swedish households goes to landfill dumps.
Concerted rejection of plastic usage itself would reduce solid waste and of a component that is difficult in disposal. The non-water closet solid waste can be treated by a simple home device which can be scaled up for combined action by residents of apartment complexes. Such complexes could also isolate pre-detergent applied kitchen water for watering plants with some minimal treatment or filtering. Solar energy, rainwater harvesting, reverse osmosis treatment and wastewater recycling should be adopted voluntarily by residential complexes, owning responsibility for disposal of a good part of their own waste.
If three bulk generators of solid waste could be made to fall in line and deal with a good part of their own waste, the load on the public system would come down drastically and make collection of the rest more manageable and efficient. These are the apartment complexes and gated communities, commercial complexes and parks. The first could be induced by suitable discount on property tax and/or GST and the second by statutory compulsion. The park waste could, without much difficulty, be converted into compost.
By our daily experience we know that the collection system in the City has not been satisfactory. In many areas this is not timely and the bin is left lo overflow spilling all over the road. It starts decomposing, becoming a health hazard. Heavy collection vehicles negotiating through narrow streets and, often, blocking traffic is a common sight in Chennai. This is a readily remediable problem, the resolution of which could make a big difference. Collection would be much easier and speedier done overnight as is the practice in many countries. The terms of the contract should be changed, if necessary. The collection should be monitored by GPS tracking. These measures require no effort nor much money.
Among numerous aspects of social and environmental reform confronted by us, nothing can be more fundamental and challenging than cleanliness and sanitation. It is fundamental because it affects basic health that governs our proneness to diseases, productivity and above all social acceptance in the eyes of the international community that is keen to tour India to discover its ancient glory and values. It is challenging because it calls for behavioural transformation and robust civic sense without which there can be little impact on the present poor state of hygiene and sanitation.
The 2018 Report would provide valuable clues for focusing future action and, meanwhile, the reports published so far show that – one, Tamil Nadu government agencies have not taken this movement for cleanliness seriously and two, citizens’ active participation and cooperation are sadly missing.
