By Ashish Srivastava

New Delhi, Aug 21 (IANS): The North Municipal Corporation of Delhi's (North MCD) failure to send data for the first two quarters of 2019 to Swachh Survekshan, resulted in its dismal ranking of 43 out of 47 cities.

Meanwhile, the staff of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) involved in solid waste management was found absent on several occasions during the field survey.

"The data of the first two quarters - ending June and September - could not be uploaded on the server due to technical snag. We did not earn marks designated for the data and led to poor performance in the Swachh Survekshan 2020," said Ira Singhal, Deputy Commissioner of North MCD.

However, Pradeep Khandelwal, Director (press & information) in EDMC said that the staff looking after the solid waste management was not on the ground. "We had fared better than the rest of the two corporations in previous surveys. However, this time, our staff involved in solid waste management were found to be absent on many occasions by the surveyors," he said.

The EDMC had performed poorly in the previous year as well. It had got the 240th rank among the 425 urban local bodies surveyed.

When asked why the staff was not available despite being charged with managing solid waste, Khandelwal said they might have been involved in other work during the survey.

"The other two corporations have outsourced solid waste management, but in our corporation, it is managed by our employees only. They may have been involved in some other chores when the survey happened," he added.

The results of Swachh Survekshan 2020, announced on Thursday, have brought utter embarrassment for Delhi's municipal corporations.

All three municipal corporations -- EDMC, North MCD and South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) have failed to rank even in the top 25 cities with a population of more than 10 lakh people category in the annual cleanliness survey by the Ministry of Urban Development.

The EDMC and North MCD were the worst performers figuring in the bottom five ranks. The EDMC ranked 46th while the North MCD held 43rd position. The SDMC, on the other hand, performed slightly better and finished 31st in the survey. A total of 47 cities were surveyed in the category.

As per the survey methodology, data of three quarters from April to December 2019 was evaluated, and its points were added to ascertain the final ranking.

Besides, on-field surveys were also conducted to check the performance of the urban local bodies.

The corporations had performed poorly in the previous year as well. In the survey of 2019, the SDMC was at the 138th position, North MCD was ranked 282nd, and EDMC got the 240th rank among the 425 local bodies.