Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (JS)
Mangaluru, Mar 15: Mangaluru has been ranked the third cleanest among 476 cities in the country by the union ministry of urban development under the Swachh Bharat Mission, announced Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) mayor Harinath Jogi.
Addressing a press meet at MCC here on Tuesday March 15, Harinath said, "The survey for the sanitation rating was conducted during 2013-15 in line with the National Urban Sanitation Policy, 2008. The rating measured the sanitation performance of cities on 19 indicators. Mangaluru scored 64.74 points, while Mysuru stood first with 65.09 points. I thank all the officials, labourers and all those who have contributed in earning this ranking by maintaining the cleanliness of the city."
MCC commissioner H N Gopalkrishna said, "We have been directed to take appropriate measures to address some of the issues so that we can upgrade our ranking in the upcoming survey. The areas that need improvement are access to and use of toilets by urban poor and other unserved households, access to and use of toilets for floating and institutional population, improvement in the recycle and reuse of treated sewage, improvement in the collection of solid waste, improvement in the processing and safe disposal of solid waste, ensuring city waste cause no adverse impact on surrounding areas outside city limits, enhancing monitoring and evaluation mechanism to deal with the problem of open defecation, addressing the issue of cost recovery from sewerage systems, improving grievance redressal systems for complaints regarding sewerage, addressing the issue of cost recovery in solid waste services, improvement in the door-to-door collection of solid waste, sanctions for deviance on polluters/ institutions for letting out untreated effluents and littering, improvement in the quality of drinking water, prevention of pollution of water bodies and prevention of diarrheal diseases."
He futher added, "Another survey will be held somewhere between October and December this year and our aim is to upgrade our ranking then. In this direction necessary steps would be taken."
Deputy mayor Sumitra Kariya, corporators Shashidar Hegde, Deepak Poojary, Keshav Maroli and others were present.