BMC looks for denizens’ aid to make city cleaner

To improve the ranking of Mumbai city on the clean cities matrix of the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan survey, the Brihanmubai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has found out a new way ‘Feet on Street Survey’ to get more feedback of citizens on city cleanliness. Earlier, in the Centre’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan survey conducted in 2017 Mumbai’s ranking dropped to Number 29 from 10, while the BMC attributed the downfall in ranking due to poor feedback submitted by the citizens, one of the three criteria in the evaluation process.

Vijay Singhal, Additional Commissioner (AMC) of the BMC, said now to keep the city clean they are creating more awareness as peoples participation is a crucial part of it. “We are reaching to the people by conducting a survey ‘Feet on Street’ from upcoming Monday onward by an independent body in all 24 wards of Mumbai at different different places which will include schools, colleges, playground, residential zone and other,” said Singhal.

A small contribution of people will help to keep Mumbai clean. “Swachhta Ratha will be made to encourage more people’s participation in cleanliness programmes. In addition, new mobile application (app) named ‘Swacchta’ is made operational were citizens by downloading the app can send pictures of dirty filthy roads. If anybody makes the complaint through app then the details of the respective location will reach to the 24x7 control room server, and action will be initiated. A team of three officers in 24x7 control room has been dedicated especially only to address the Swachhta app related complaints,” he added.

Along with the survey the BMC also plans to appreciate societies, hotels, hospitals of all wards who successfully contributed in waste management initiative. Organisation named ‘Unitec’ specialised for conducting city surveys has been appointed for ranking these entities. “An appreciation certificate patting their work will be given and every ward official has been asked to select few hotels, societies, hospitals for the certification,” said a civic officer. BMC also claims in last 6 months 7,100 metric tonne waste has been decreased from going to dumping ground due to various initiatives taken up recently.