In a new development, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has announced that the annual sanitation survey exercise of Swachh Survekshan, under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) would be undertaken on a quarterly basis, starting this year. According to an IE report, this move comes after many cities slipped back and were not able to maintain hygiene, once they got a decent ranking on cleanliness levels in the previous Swachh Sarvekshan surveys.
Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (Independent charge) was quoted saying recently that the Swachh Survekshan League 2020 by the central government has been launched with the aim of sustaining the on ground performance of cities along with the continuous monitoring of service level performance on cleanliness. The main objective of the Swachh Bharat programme is to maintain the cleanliness and hygiene of cities and hence, the survey is conducted in order to regulate the conditions.
According to the report, the survey is to be conducted in as many as three quarters, and it will give equal weightage to every quarter based on the cities updating their progress over the online MIS as well as citizens testifying on the many parameters through the outbound calls. The Swachh Survekshan, which was first rolled out in the year 2016, is a survey to rank the cities of the country based upon several cleanliness parameters in order to build a spirit of competition among cities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Mission in the year 2014 and it has two sub missions, namely, the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) and the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban). The Swachh Survekshan comes under the aegis of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban). Addressing the need for a quarterly evaluation programme, the Swachh Survekshan has been redesigned in an innovative manner, with a prime focus on sustaining the changed behavior of the country’s sanitation and hygiene.
