Swachh Survey: Navi Mumbai gets five stars again, Mumbai zero

MUMBAI: Mumbai has got a zero star rating in the Swachh Survey 2020 results announced on Tuesday. Despite failing to get even a three-star rating in the 2019 survey, the BMC decided to apply for five stars this year. By contrast, Navi Mumbai was awarded a “five-star garbage-free city” rating, the only one in the state to get it two years in a row.

Cities are evaluated by central teams to achieve the goal of a garbage-free nation.

A five-star rating has tough criteria, including 100% households and premises in a city must be covered by door-to-door collection and transport of solid waste, 100% public and commercial areas should be swept once a day and once at night, residential areas too must be swept daily, waste bins should be placed at strategic locations, and user charges should be collected from all households and premises. Mumbai did not get a three-star rating last year due to non-collection of user charges. This year, BMC officials said it appears they did not meet any criteria so failed to qualify.

Thirty-four cities in Maharashtra, including Chandrapur, Dhule, Jalgaon, Jalna, Thane and Mira-Bhayandar, have been given a three-star rating while 41, including Ahmednagar, Akola, Nashik, Vasai-Virar and Kalyan-Dombivili, have got one star each.

Meanwhile, Navi Mumbai is one among the six cities in the country to get the coveted rating for its waste management mechanism. The other five cities are Surat and Rajkot in Gujarat, Mysore in Karnataka, Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Ambikapur in Chhattisgarh.

NMMC commissioner Annasaheb Misal said, “A city is considered garbage-free if it complies with conditions prescribed that include door-to-door collection, segregation at source, scientific disposal and processing. We owe this to our conservancy workers... We lack a system for reusing recycled water. A plant is being planned for the purpose and it will be ready by next year. Then we can seek a seven-star rating.”