SWACHH SURVEKSHAN NEEDS TO COME CLEAN

How could Indore be India’s cleanest city? Is Varanasi really cleaner than Bhubaneswar? Why is Leh seen to be dirtier than Gangtok? What is keeping Mumbai and Navi Mumbai 20 ranks apart on cleanliness scores? These questions have come up since the government released the Swachh Survekshan 2017 – a survey of cleanliness across 434 cities. The survey made for interesting headlines and infographics for news publications, but the puzzle remains.

While the parameters of cleanliness chosen for the survey seem adequate, the methodology is somewhat flawed. The survey rated cities on five parameters – sweeping, collection and transportation of solid waste, processing and disposal of solid waste, construction of toilets to stop open defecation, capacity building and lastly, communication and awareness campaigns to change behaviour. Municipal authorities from cities covered by the survey provided data on the level of their preparedness on all these parameters. Surveyors were deployed to verify the municipal administration’s claims and make independent assessment. Citizen feedback was taken through phone calls, social media and digital apps. The survey assigned 45% weight to self-declaration by municipalities, 30% to independent assessment by surveyors and 25% to citizen feedback.

The problem with such a methodology is that it mixes up the absolute with the relative. Let’s imagine a city, X, where 90% of its residents have access to toilets and no toilets were built in the past year. Now, let’s take another city, Y, where the same share increased from 60% last year to 70% this year because it built new toilets. City Y still has lower coverage of toilets than City X, but the survey would rank it higher on the open defecation parameter.

Similarly, residents were asked if cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation in their city had improved from last year. That perhaps explains why Varanasi ranks higher than Bhubaneswar. Civic authorities and several NGOs in Varanasi have been on a cleanliness overdrive and the holy city has improved, but it isn’t cleaner than the capital of Odisha. Even PM Modi, who chose to make Bhubaneswar the venue for the party’s executive meeting last month, would concede that.

Also, citizen feedback is sourced mostly through digital media and phone calls. It is unlikely that people in the lower social and economic strata, who bear the brunt of an unclean city, would have had representative participation in the survey. Moreover, feedback sourced through digital tools run the risk of being manipulated.

The survey leans heavily on declarations made by municipalities, but there is neither any penalty for false information nor a credible system to check their claims. The surveyors, 421 of them, took less than six weeks to give their independent assessment. There have been news reports of some of them being caught while allegedly taking bribes. A poll earlier this year by an independent citizen engagement platform, localcircles.com, 75% of residents in 200 cities didn’t see their municipal bodies fully engaged in the Swachh Bharat mission.

Another drawback of the survey lies in the typology of cities. Different types of cities will have different standards and challenges. For example a town of 20,000 people is a vastly different entity than a metro like Mumbai. Similarly a temple town such as Tirupati should be considered separately from an industrial city such as Coimbatore or Sivakashi. Faridabad, a favoured destination for migrant workers, will have challenges very different from that of Kanpur that once was a manufacturing hub.

Finally the base value should be taken as a determinant to measure change. A newer town like Navi Mumbai would have started from a higher cleanliness base level than its famous neighbor, Mumbai. And finally we need to set and measure against benchmarks, for different typologies.

These are complex issues, but critical to establishing the credibility of the survey, which is “intended to foster a spirit of healthy competition among towns and cities.” Swachh Surveskhan will fall short of that expectation if the shortcomings in its methodology are not addressed.

A MAJOR DRAWBACK OF THE SURVEY IS IN NOT FACTORING IN THE TYPOLOGY OF CITIES. DIFFERENT TYPES OF CITIES WILL HAVE DIFFERENT STANDARDS AND CHALLENGES