Patna: The state capital has slipped four places in the last 15 days and is at 42nd spot in the current ranking for the ongoing Swachh Survekshan (cleanliness survey) of 51 cities with over 10 lakh population each.
Greater Mumbai is heading the list with 10,85,606 points, while Patna's score as of now is 3,748.
Sources in the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) attributed the poor show to a few factors, including dismal door-to-door garbage collection and failure to make the district open defecation free.
"Patna is lagging behind on user happiness index as well as user engagement and agency responsiveness," a PMC official said under cover of anonymity. "The chances of the ranking going up are bleak."
The civic body had made several tall promises, but they have mostly fallen flat.
The PMC had started door-to-door garbage collection in the New Capital, Bankipore and Kankerbagh circles on April 6 last year in public-private partnership mode.
However, payment for the agencies assigned the was stopped last month as their work was not up to the mark. The process is on to hire new agencies for the task.
Open defecation in the diara areas of the Ganga is another factor behind Patna's poor show.
Also, the secondary dumping yards at most places including Gardanibagh and Agamkuan are yet to function efficiently.
There was also plan to generate electricity from waste at Ramchak Bariya, but that too is pending.
Even roads to the main dumping yard of Patna are not in good shape.
A team from the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs, appointed by the Centre's Swachh Bharat Mission, had conducted a three-day survey of Patna. The team visited various places in the city, gathering information about door-to-door collection of waste, whether global positioning system (GPS) is used to monitor vehicles carrying waste, and other such measures and practices adopted by the civic body.
The team has completed all the documentation work and has collected feedback for this year's survey, the results of which are expected some time in April-May.
The only way left to improve Patna's ranking is to ensure greater people's participation, the deadline for submissions under which is a week away. Only 7,808 Patna residents have registered on the app so far.
The PMC has appealed to the city residents to participate in a more active way in the ongoing survey.
First, citizens have to download Swachhata-MoHUA, the official app of the ministry, on their Android phones from Google PlayStore. Then, they can lodge a complaint or leave a feedback on the app, built by IchangeMyCity, which is a division of Bangalore-based nonprofit Janaagraha. Based on the complaints received, the PMC acts towards grievance redress. The more the citizens participate and the more the civic body addresses their complaints, the better the city scores.
It's not as if Patna has had a stellar track record in the cleanliness survey.
The first year it was conducted, in 2016, the state capital was at 70th position among 73 Indian cities. Last year it fared slightly better: 262 out of 434 cities.
Mysore was adjudged the cleanest city in the first survey, and Indore bagged the tag last year.
