Panchkula records best performance

PANCHKULA : Grabbing the 56th position, Panchkula has climbed 15 spots from last year’s 71st rank in the 2020 Swachh Survekshan rankings.

This is Panchkula’s best performance after improving its rank for the fourth time in a row. After its lowest position of 211 in 2017, the city rose to the 142nd rank in the following year and further to the 71st spot in 2019.

In Haryana, Panchkula has ranked third after Karnal (rank 17) and Rohtak (rank 35) in first and second positions, respectively. While none of the senior officials from the municipal corporation (MC), including commissioner Mahavir Singh, were immediately available for comments, Haryana Assembly speaker and local MLA Gian Chand Gupta gave the credit to the sanitation workers.

“The ranking is the result of their hard work. I give special credit to the sanitation staff, who play a crucial role in the city’s cleanliness. Apart from this, residents’ active participation also helped,” he said.

Gupta said they were already working on setting up a solid waste management plant, which will further improve the city’s ranking in 2021. Former MC commissioner-cum-administrator Rajesh Jogpal said the city could have achieved a much higher rank if the solid waste management plant was set up and people segregated waste at source.

We couldn’t be in top 6, because we didn’t get 5-star GFC certification. We need to improve on solid waste management, which we are working on. KK YADAV, MC commissioner