It is indeed a proud moment for the people of Andhra Pradesh as two of the cities of AP had bagged top positions in survey conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban). Vijayawada has been ranked as the ‘cleanest city’ among big cities in the country having more than one million population and Tirupati as the ‘Best City in Solid Waste Management’. The results of Swachh Survekshan 2018 — a survey aimed at assessing all the municipal cities in the country for their progress on the government’s flagship Swachh Bharat Mission, were announced on Wednesday by Minister of State for Housing Hardeep Singh Puri. In the Swachh Survekshan-2016 rankings, Vijayawada secured 23rd rank and 19th rank in 2017 among the 500 cities surveyed.
The survey was conducted in 4,200 cities, covering a population of 40 crore. A three-member team from Quality Council of India (QCI) completed the survey in the city in the first week of February as part of the assessment for the Swachh Survekshan-2018 rankings. The QCI teams, as part of their inspection, visited major locations and examined sanitation. The team members also visited commercial areas, residential areas and slums and gathered data. They also took feedback from people on cleanliness. The QCI officials, after inspection, sent photos and videos of the locations from the site to New Delhi through geo-tagging.
The city evaluated on six parameters - Collection and transportation of municipal solid waste (30 per cent) - Processing and disposal of solid waste (25%) - IEC (Information, Education and Communication) (5%) - Capacity building (5%) - Innovation and best practices (5%)
