Lucknow down in dumps, courtesy poor feedback
It’s a fall from grace for Lucknow in terms of cleanliness. The city, which ranked 28th on the sanitation index of Quality Control India (QCI) last year, was down in the dumps at 269th position this year.
The criteria for rankings this year included 45% marks for cities becoming open defecation free, solid waste management (including sweeping, collection, transportation and processing of garbage), education and capacity building. Lucknow was rated poorly in this.
Another 25% marks were kept for field inspection and 30% for citizen feedback. At least 18 lakh citizens across the cities gave their feedback on sanitation in their respective cities and towns.
And Lucknow fared poorly in most of these fields to slip down to rank 269, which is the poorest for any state capital in India.
Environmentalist and retired deputy director GSI Virendra Singh Yadav analysed the reasons behind Lucknow’s poor ranking on the urban sanitation index.
OPEN DEFECATION
There are still 20,000 households in the state capital, which don’t have toilets and this means around one lakh Lucknowites still defecate in the open every day.
POOR DOOR-TO-DOOR COLLECTION
Till now, solid waste management was never a priority for any government here. Lucknow’s landfill site is still not fully operational and the status has been the same for the last 10 years while door-to-door collection of waste has gone from bad to worse. LMC claims to pick garbage in 55 wards, but it doesn’t know which agency is collecting waste in which ward. While Ecogreen is collecting waste but in some wards, Jyoti Envirotech is doing the job in others – but no one knows where they are dumping the waste.
Another reason for Lucknow’s poor ranking is low level of awareness among masses about sanitation, said Virendra Singh Yadav. “Citizens’ feedback was carrying 30% marks. And Lucknow fared very poorly in this, scoring around 100 out of 600 marks. People need to be involved in the process of urban sanitation,” he emphasised.
FILTH ON ROAD
The sanitation scene of Lucknow was poor when the QCI team came for inspection. They visited Lalkuan, where the filth was overflowing on the road from the dumpyard. They also went to Yahiyaganj, which is one of the filthiest areas of the city. The team saw markets where traders threw their waste on the road in the night and there was no one to clean the litter.
EXPLANATION SOUGHT
Municipal commissioner Udairaj Singh has directed the nagar swasthya adhikari to explain reasons behind the city’s poor show.
He has directed the city health officer to study the method that helped Varanasi improve its ranking.