Dehradun slips to 384th position in Swachh Survekshan, Uttarakhand also takes a beating

DEHRADUN : The dismal state of the waste management system in Dehradun came to haunt the city on Wednesday when the Centre’s Swachh Survekshan 2019 ranked the state capital at the 384th slot out of 425 cities having a population of over one lakh (In all, 4237 cities participated in the survey). Dehradun’s ranking went down by as much as 125 positions since it had been ranked 259th in the survey last year.
The city’s performance worsened even within Uttarakhand, as it slipped from being the second-most cleanest city in the state last year to the fifth, falling 103 spots behind state topper Roorkee which is ranked 281.

Moreover, the overall performance of Uttarakhand as a state also took a beating, as it slipped down to 19th position. The Himalayan state had ranked 11th in the previous year’s survey. In fact, no city in Uttarakhand could feature in the top 250 list.
Meanwhile, the latest rankings did not come as a surprise to city residents, who have often raised concerns over piling garbage heaps in most parts of Doon as well as an ineffective system of door-to-door trash collection.
“These rankings are not surprising at all. While many cities are improving their waste management system and providing new facilities, we have not even managed to implement the much-promised door-to-door collection for over a year. What else can be expected?” said Yogendra Juyal, a resident of Neshvilla Road.
Sujeet Chaudhary, a resident from Nehru Colony, echoed similar sentiments. “You will find piles of garbage at every other corner and there is no one to take care of them. The rankings reflect the state of the city,” he said.
The city managed to score only 1,342 marks out of 5,000 in the survey. In comparison, Indore – which has been adjudged the cleanest city in the country for three years in a row – scored 4659 points.
In the Service Level Progress, which measures the services provided by the urban local bodies, Dehradun got only 156 marks out of 1,250, while Indore scored 1,230 marks, highlighting the stark difference in quality of civic services provided to the residents.
Responding to the city’s rankings, Dehradun municipal commissioner Vinay Shankar Pandey said the city’s performance warrants introspection, and assured that “the DMC would fix all shortcomings.”
“We will study the results in detail and see where we are lacking. We will improve our performance in the next survey,” Pandey said.