The Quality Council of India (QCI) will undertake a new sanitation survey under the Swachh Bharat Mission between January 5 and 20, 2016 in 75 major cities across the country to review sanitation and hygiene conditions.
Announcing this after reviewing the preparedness of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Mission Director of the Swachh Bharat Mission Praveen Prakash said that the BMC had set out an ambitious target of building 1.15 lakh toilets by December, 2016.
Prakash said that all-India target under the Swachh Bharat Mission was to build 25 lakh toilets, against which 8 lakh toilets had already been constructed.
Underscoring the need for behavioural change among the people vis-a-vis cleanliness, Prakash called upon BMC to step up its public awareness drive about the Swachh Bharat initiatives.
Addressing a news conference after visiting some areas in Mumbai on Wednesday, Prakash said that the Centre was laying greater stress on solid waste management.
“Swachchh Bharat Mission aims at ensuring door-to-door garbage collection and disposal of municipal solid waste in all the 80,000 wards in urban areas by 2019. The municipal bodies are encouraged to convert waste into compost as well as generate electricity” Prakash said, adding that it would be made obligatory for local Discoms to buy power generated from municipal waste.
Prakash urged the citizens to participate actively in the sanitation survey to be carried in 75 cities by the Quality Council of India from January 5 to 20, 2015.
The Swachh Bharat Mission’s Managing Director said that the new survey would be based on data provided by the municipal bodies, field inspections and citizen feedback through an IVRS questionnaire. Any citizen could take part in the survey by giving a missed call on toll free number 1800 267 2,777, which will be open till January 15, 2015.
Prakash said “The survey parameters have been aligned with the objectives of Swachh Bharat Mission, with more emphasis on solid waste management”.
In the previous survey of 476 cities, in which Mumbai was ranked 147th... The solid waste management had a weightage of only 13%, as against 60% in the new survey. Household and community toilets have a weightage of 30 per cent, while the weightage for the city level sanitation plans and information, behaviour change communication is 10 per cent.
The results of the survey will be announced on the MyGov website on January 25, 2015.