New Delhi, Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday said that Delhi’s civic bodies will construct five lakh community and 67 lakh household toilets by the end of 2019.
He also said that unlike previous years, ‘Swachh Survekshan 2019’ will encourage large-scale citizen participation and sustainability of initiatives to make towns and cities garbage-free and open defecation-free (ODF).
The survey, as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban, will be held from January 4-31 to rank all cities on the basis of cleanliness and sanitation.
The Minister was speaking at the inauguration of a workshop for municipal bodies here on the survey, claimed by the government to be the world’s biggest on cleanliness.
The workshop, he said, should pay attention to all aspects of making Delhi ODF and garbage-free.
“From segregation at the point of production, transportation of waste, and conversion of waste to compost and energy — the workshop should work on all these aspects,” Puri said.
Swachh Bharat National Mission Director V.K. Jindal said that the Ministry had launched a web portal ‘Swachh Manch’ to bring together volunteers/contributors and other stakeholders to the mission.
“Swachh Manch will enable uploading of pictorial evidence of citizens and organisations participating in the cleanliness initiatives, as well as record the number of hours voluntarily put in. It will also be integrated with the existing Swachhata App to act as a citizens’ grievance redressal platform,” Jindal said.
In order to help cities prepare for the coming survey, the Ministry has launched Swachh Survekshan 2019 toolkit and Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) ODF Plus and ODF Plus Plus certification protocol.
“While the SBM ODF Plus protocol focuses on sustaining community/pubic toilet usage by ensuring their functionality, cleanliness and maintenance, the SBM ODF Plus Plus will focus on achieving sanitation sustainability by addressing complete sanitation value chain, including safe containment, processing and disposal of faecal sludge and septage,” it said.
The first ever ‘Swachh Survekshan’ covering 73 cities was conducted in 2016, wherein Mysuru in Karnataka bagged the cleanest city award.
In 2017, Swachh Survekshan covered 434 cities with a population of one lakh and above. It widened its coverage to 4,203 cities in 2018. In both these surveys, Indore in Madhya Pradesh grabbed the title of India’ cleanest city.