Cleanliness rankings vs ground reality: Is Guwahati really a clean city?

Among the umpteen campaigns launched by the NDA government in its years in power, the annual Swachh Survekshan survey, which seeks to acknowledge and award urban entities for cleanliness, is indubitably one of the best essays.

Swachh Survekshan is the world’s largest urban cleanliness survey, assessing cities on parameters such as waste management, sanitation infrastructure, and citizen participation. One might recollect that just a few decades earlier, foreign tourists had returned to their respective countries aghast at the dirt and squalor they had encountered in Indian cities and towns, giving this nation a negative rating as far as cleanliness was concerned.

By having urban entities compete with one another to present a cleaner front, even while being concerned with the health and well-being of citizens, the Swachh Survekshan initiative has done much to improve our cities and towns in matters of hygiene.

This year, Indore has once again secured the top spot as India’s cleanest city, marking its eighth consecutive win in the Central government’s annual Swachh Survekshan survey, followed by Surat and Navi Mumbai. In the 3-10 lakh population category, Noida has secured the top spot as the cleanest city, with Chandigarh coming in second and Mysuru ranking third. One common denominator that binds all the above-named entities is that each of them possesses a garbage collection, segregation and disposal system, complemented by an effort at recycling some waste material.

Apart from the above, the administration’s endeavour at cyclic utilisation of waste by-products – such as converting garbage into biofuel to run the transport system – have made Indore and some of the others deserving winners.

But the biggest factor for their success is the astonishing cooperation with the administration that citizens have shown, adopting waste-segregation practices while making every effort to keep the environment clean. However, the biggest surprise in the announced Swachh Survekshan awards was the one given to Guwahati as the ‘Promising Swachh Shehar’ under the 3-10 lakh population category.

Surely, in associating the word ‘clean’ with the capital of Assam, the surveyors had their tongue in their cheeks! It is not only that the city turns into an eyesore during the monsoon season, when there is urban flooding and the sewage from drains are left on the roads when the water finally drains out, or it presents a dusty appearance during the dry season due to the sand blown in by the breeze.

Guwahati’s dubious cleanliness is also enhanced by the fact that, unlike Indore and some others, it does not have an effective garbage collection, segregation and disposal-recycle system, but even today relies on dumping grounds. While our officials might well pat themselves on their backs for being judged as the cleanest city in the Northeast, the citizens of this metropolis well know what the ground realities of Guwahati are!