Centre’s tweaks in credentials sees huge leap in Palike’s cleanliness rank

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: As the Swachh Survekshan survey scores were unveiled on Wednesday, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) found itself in the 125th position out of 446 cities, the higher end of rankings.

This comes after its tragicomic 2022 rank of 43 among 45 cities in the ‘above 10 lakh category.

As the criteria sees the one lakh category return, the BBMP has an improved ranking, bettering cities like Chennai, but still behind Mumbai and Hyderabad.

It would be a mixed bag for the civic agency, when comparing the city reporting card of 2022 and 2023.

Although door-to-door collection of waste, source segregation and waste generation processing has seen improvements, Remediation of dumpsites has seen a massive fall.

100% in 2022 to ZERO in 2023. Credentials in 2022’s report card like cleanliness of drains and grievance redressal are missing in the latest report card.

This also poses doubt on the scope of this report, and possibly be the reason for the BBMP’s jump in rankings. In 2021, the Palike was awarded the best ‘Self Sustainable Mega City’ award.

The annual survey conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban (MoHUA) is conducted based on three metrics - Service level progress, Certifications and itizen Voice.