Swachh ranking : NDMC at 4th; SDMC improves to 32

New Delhi: It was a mixed bag for Delhi in the latest Swachhta Ranking, with the civic bodies governing Lutyens' Zone, south Delhi and the cantonment area performing exceedingly well, while north and east corporations trailed.

The BJP-led South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) catapulted to 32nd position in the country from its last rank of 202nd, riding on various initiatives it took in the past several months. In the Swachh Bharat ranking of 434 cities for 2016-17, areas falling under the three municipal corporations were at a low -- the EDMC (196), SDMC (202) and NDMC (279).

In the ranking for 2018, while the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) managed to still move up the ladder from 279 to 206, the EDMC plummeted to 341. However, the New Delhi Municipal Council and the Delhi Cantonment Board brought cheers for the capital as both finished on the top in the cleanest 'small city' and cleanest 'cantonment' categories.

"New Delhi Municipal Council, a centrally administered municipal body located in the heart of Delhi with a population of about 2,50,000 residents, has been adjudged India's Cleanest Small City, falling under the 1-3 lakh population category," a senior official of the Council said. "It has finished 4th (3597 points) in the overall ranking in the country, up from 7th last year," he said.

The Delhi Cantonemnt Board (DCB) has emerged as the cleanest cantonment in the country. The number of urban local bodies (ULBs) assessed has progressively increased over the years, from a modest 73 metropolitan cities and state capitals in 2016, to 434 in 2017, to a pan India coverage of 4,203 ULBs in the current round, including 61 cantonment boards.

A senior official of the NDMC said, "Moving from 279 to 206 is still a positive sign and we will endeavour to perform better in the next reckoning. We are cash-strapped and faced strikes by sanitation workers, so that also I presume affected our ranking.

"The EDMC too had faced sanitation workers' strike, so dents the image, therefore the ranking," a senior EDMC official said. The EDMC too is cash-strapped and facing funds issues. The NDMC and the EDMC are also BJP-ruled civic bodies.

SDMC Commissioner P K Goel expressed pleasure over SDMC's jumping spot from "consolatory 202 to respectable 32". "We had aimed to finish in the first 25, and hence, had constituted dedicated teams to accomplish specific goals.

Weekly review meetings helped in accelerating the pace of work and continuously motivated the team members to translate sanitation initiatives into reality," he said. Construction of 164 community toilets and 34 public toilets, technology-based monitoring of 400 public facilities, allowing the use of toilets in hotels and restaurants for free for women and children in major markets, helped in boosting our ranking.

South Delhi Mayor Narendra Chawla said, the SDMC has performed better than the other two corporations -- NDMC and EDMC. "While the SDMC has made an impressive improvement from 202 to 32, the EDMC has deteriorated its ranking from 196 to 341, and the NDMC has been able to bring in a marginal improvement from 279 to 206," he said.