Most of Bihar cities alarmingly dirty: Govt survey

By TCN News,

Patna: Most of the cities in Bihar are in red category, according to a Central Government rating of cities under the National Urban Sanitation Policy. The rating covers 423 major cities, almost 72 percent of India’s total urban population. Of 19 cities of Bihar in the list, 17 are in red zone. Nationwide 190 cities are in red zone. Chandigarh is the cleanest city in the country with 73.48 score while Churu in Rajasthan, the dirtiest with 16.75 points.

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The rating announced yesterday is the part of the exercise started last year to create awareness about sanitation. “The data was collected from cities in a consultative and collaborative manner. Based on the scores for output, process and outcome indicators, cities were then classified under four color categories; red, black, blue and green,” says a Central Government release.

Of 19 cities of Bihar covered in the rating, Patna has got 143 rank with 38.16 points and Muzaffarpur is ranked 170 with 36.94 points. Only these two are in black category. The rest 17 are in red zone with ranks between 236 to 400. Among the lowest 10, there are 3 cities of Bihar.

The rating was carried out by three agencies i.e AC Nielsen-ORG Marg, Development and Research Services (DRS) and CEPT University. The process of data collection was carried out between December 2009 and March 2010 and was subsequently scrutinised in April by a team of experts. The results were communicated to State Governments as part of consultations and presented to the National Advisory Group on Urban Sanitation, the apex Group which oversees implementation of the Policy. The final consultations with States and Cities were held at Vigyan Bhawan before declaration of ratings.

The rating of Cities creates a baseline which can be used to measure progress in respect of sanitation in our cities and is expected to encourage cities to perform better in years to come. Based on the results of the rating, the best performers will be recognized with a National Award- “The Nirmal Shahar Puruskar”.

The exercise reveals that more than half of the cities are in the Blue or Black categories. There are four cities in the blue category which have scored above 66 but less than 90 marks out of hundred. Almost all cities report complete elimination of manual scavenging. More than 50 cities report 90 percent or above safe collection of human excreta. Twenty four cities collect more than 80 percent of their solid wastes – another six show an outstanding performance of nearly 100 percent primary collection. While treatment is a big challenge for most, 17 cities have achieved treating at least 60 percent of their wastes. Most cities have performed well in the process indicators, especially the larger cities, but results for the output and outcome indicators are mixed.

(Lowest 10)

Click to see the list of rating
http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2010/may/d2010051103.pdf