Swachh Survekshan 2020

Why in News?

The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MOHUA) has released the results of the Swachh Survekshan League 2020 recently.

What is Swachh Survekshan?

• The Swachh Survekshan is the world's largest cleanliness survey which covers more than 4370 Indian cities.
• It was rolled out 4 years ago as the answer to a problem that municipal law failed to solve.
• It is a completely digitized and paperless survey.

What is the survey’s purpose?

• Sanitation and public health are responsibilities of State governments.
• It is no secret that they have spectacularly failed at managing growing volumes of municipal and hazardous waste.
• The problem has only been compounded by the absence of plans that take a holistic view of housing, sanitation, water supply, waste management and transport.

What did the MOHUA do?

• Ahead of the launch of Swachh Survekshan 2020, the Union MOHUA is trying to stir up competition among cities.
• It stirs up by pre-ranking them for their performance during 2019 and assigning points to be added this year.
• As an idea, unleashing the competitive spirit among States may seem appealing.
• But in reality, the problems confronting urban India require large-scale infrastructure creation, full adherence to legal requirements on waste management, and transparent technical audits.
• Many cities remain clueless on handling their waste.
• Bhopal, which figures among the top 5 cleanest cities under the just-released list, continues to live with the effects of the gas disaster of 1984.
• Ranks and prizes clearly cannot solve the national waste management crisis.

What are the targets fixed by the MOHUA?

• Looking ahead to the next edition of the Survekshan, the MOHUA has identified ambitious targets like,
  1. 100% processing and safe disposal of waste.
  2. Complete faecal sludge and septage management and
  3. Wastewater treatment and reuse.
• The Ministry has also sanctioned funds under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) to help States set up facilities necessary to manage waste.

What could be done?

• States should ask for extended funding under such schemes to create the infrastructure for a future-focused clean-up.
• Simultaneously, they should institute measures to reduce waste.
• The emphasis worldwide is on creating a circular economy centred at the principle of material recovery from all kinds of waste, reuse, recycling and reduced pressure on natural resources.
• A sound ranking of cities and towns would naturally give the highest weightage to this dimension of sustainable management, replacing symbolism with an environmentally sound approach.
• Such rigour in policy formulation can make the Centre’s goal of eliminating single-use plastic by 2022 seem more realistic, and industry would find a compelling reason to switch to alternatives.
• Retooling Swachh Survekshan 2020 to go beyond perception management and adopt sustainability is essential to make it a genuine contest.

Source: The Hindu