Bhubaneswar, Feb. 13: The civic body has started to organise street-corner meetings to create awareness about the ongoing Swachh Survekshan II survey and increase participation as it aims to secure the top spot on the basis of a positive citizens' feedback.
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) organised the first meeting near BMC-Bhawani Mall at Saheed Nagar where Binay Dash, general manager of Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited, addressed citizens and sensitised them about the national-level survey and the steps taken to ensure a clean city.
The meeting attracted hundreds of citizens, including an artist dressed up as Mahatma Gandhi, who was seen spreading awareness about the survey at the site. "The street-corner meets are an effort to apprise citizens about the survey and sensitise them about maintaining cleanliness and using dustbins. We are here to provide service," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.
Citizen feedback is an important component of the Swachh Survekshan-2017 since it contributes 30 per cent of the total marks. Residents can give their feedback through a toll-free number and also the Swachhata App that can be downloaded on smart phones.
In a related development, the urban development ministry has extended the deadline for feedbacks from February 12 to February 28. The move comes amid worries about the poor response of citizens from different cities, including Bhubaneswar.
The Union ministry has also announced cash prizes for volunteers - Swachhagrahis - for spreading awareness. "The survey's objective is to sensitise citizens and local bodies to maintain cleanliness. We are going to make citizens aware about the different rewards from the ministry in the meetings," said a civic official.
The civic body's communication cell is co-ordinating the meetings. On February 8, when the first meetings were held, they conducted three such street corners and there are plans to organise at least 50 such meetings across the city. The meetings will continue till the end of this month.
So far, the civic body has conducted 15 meetings across the city, including slum settlements and educational institutions. The civic body organised today's meeting at a VSS Nagar kalyan mandap, while they also conducted a meeting at yesterday's Patha Utsav event at Janpath. Sources said the meetings were yielding results and the civic body had already received 5,140 feedbacks at the time of filing this report. The number of downloads of the Swachhata App stands at 1,090 at present.
"This survey evaluates and ranks cities based on cleanliness and other aspects of urban sanitation. The urban development ministry created it with the objective of fostering healthy competition between cities to improve standards of cleanliness and implement the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan objective," said a member of the communication cell.
Local residents, however, were not entirely pleased with the lax attitude of the civic body in ensuring cleanliness.
According to them, it was only after the city emerged at the top of the smart city standings last year that the municipal corporation decided to implement a cleanliness policy.
They said in unison that prior to that, there were no coloured bins placed across the city or sweeping twice on a daily basis.
Last year, Bhubaneswar had taken part in the first national cleanliness survey finished 24th among 73 cities. It had secured 434 marks out of an average total of 500 marks in the sanitation challenge. In the citizens' feedback section last year, 87 per cent said they had individual toilets while another 41 per cent confirmed that there was the provision of daily door-to-door garbage collection in the city.
Goutam Nagar resident Anand Mishra, while hailing the civic body's efforts in this regard, believes that it should have taken up the project much earlier.
"Urban local bodies get funds to organise such meetings and campaigns. Instead of street play, they have named it street-corner meeting. There should be efforts to continue this campaign instead of fooling the people," said Mishra, a retired government employee.
