A CLEAN SWEEP
Indore’s status as India’s cleanest city is no longer a subject of debate. On August 20, for the fourth time in a row, the commercial capital of Madhya Pradesh topped the Union government’s Swachh Survekshan 2020 national rankings for cities with a population of over a million. Indore’s consistent showing might also put to rest all misgivings about the methodology of this annual survey and convince even diehard cynics that the city must have done something right to earn its laurels.
A mix of factors has aided Indore’s transformation from an ordinary central Indian town, with its regular markers of dust, filth, chaos and stray animals, to one with clean roads and a sound waste collection and management plan—all made possible by city-proud municipal workers and citizens.
To understand Indore’s success strategy, one needs to go back five years. In 2016, when the first Swachh Survekshan rankings were announced, Indore had ranked 25th in the country, with the top honours going to Mysuru. The same year, however, Indore became the second district in India to be declared open defecation-free, inspiring then municipal commissioner Manish Singh and mayor Malini Gaur to take up the challenge of sprucing up the city.
Manish Singh used a carrot-and-stick policy at the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC), the agency tasked with sanitation. While he added some 2,000 sanitation workers to the existing strength of nearly 3,500, the services of laggards were terminated. “I identified door-to-door collection of garbage as the most crucial step towards ensuring cleanliness on the streets. Even if citizens throw garbage at the designated spots, it tends to pile up when not collected in time,” says Manish Singh, who is now the collector of Indore. Under him, the IMC also initiated waste segregation at source, which fell into place after some initial resistance from the public.
As the IMC’s efforts began to show results, Indore’s vibrant civil society embraced the cause and social groups began assisting the municipality in its cleanliness initiative. The IMC roped in NGOs to monitor the door-to-door garbage collection. These NGOs not only ensured that municipal garbage trucks did not go off track but also immediately reported any pile-up of garbage noticed in the city. They also helped the IMC implement its ‘3Rs’ strategy—‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’.
To make a big success of its doorto-door collection, the IMC also made substantial capital expenditure, of an estimated Rs 180 crore. In just a couple of years, the IMC’s fleet of cleaning and garbage collection vehicles jumped from 100 to 600. According to IMC, Indore, which generates 1,115 million tonnes (MT) of garbage a day, has achieved total door-to-door collection in all its 85 wards, covering both residential and commercial spaces.
In 2017, Indore sprung to the top of the Swachh Survekshan rankings. Now, India’s cleanest city faced the challenge of holding onto its prized tag. Manish Singh was replaced by Asheesh Singh as IMC commissioner in early 2018. Asheesh Singh continued with the successful strategies put in place by his predecessor, helping Indore produce results consistently. He not only recruited another 2,500 sanitation workers, taking the workforce tasked with keeping Indore clean to 8,000 but also set a goal for himself—to rid Indore of its biggest eyesore, the landfill site at
THE MADHYA PRADESH GOVT NOW HIGHLIGHTS INDORE’S SWACHH STATUS WHILE WOOING INVESTORS
Devguradia, where waste had piled up for over four decades. “A pile of garbage encourages others to add to it, making it bigger and unmanageable,” says Asheesh Singh, now the collector of the neighbouring district of Ujjain. An extensive bioremediation process undertaken at Devguradia rid the site of some 200,000 MT of waste. The trenching ground has been demarcated with a boundary wall and a green belt developed with 60,000 saplings. With the entire waste generated by Indore being processed and the stench surrounding Devguradia gone, there is even a proposal to turn the Devguradia trenching ground into a golf course. Among those who testify to Indore’s success story is former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, in his book The Third Pillar. “After eating food on paper plates bought from stalls at the famous Sarafa food market, customers simply threw their plates and any residue on the ground. People were no more careful with their domestic garbage, dumping it anywhere in the proximity of overflowing dumpsters, which were rarely emptied,” writes Rajan about the Indore of old times, before going on to elaborate on its transformation. Today, or rather just before Covid changed lives, cleaning teams arrive at the Sarafa market at four every morning and by daybreak, there isn’t an ounce of garbage around. Indore’s residents now take great pride in the cleanliness honours their city has earned. So much so that it’s not uncommon for them to call out anyone who inadvertently litters the streets. The state government is also capitalising on Indore’s status and mentioning it in all its promotional activities, especially while attracting investment. The canny use of cricket-speak in its awareness campaigns is another interesting sidelight to Indore’s civic success story. In 2019, singer Shaan gave voice to the jingle ‘Hat-trick Lagayenge’, which was followed by the slogan ‘Chauka Lagayenge’ the next year. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan insists Indore will hit a sixer in two years from now. He isn’t off the mark when he says, “Cleanliness is now a cultural thing in Indore.”