Guwahati city remains among country’s dirtiest cities despite spending crores of rupees
Following the trends of the previous years, the ranks of Guwahati continue to drop in the Swachh Survekshan.
STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: Following the trends of the previous years, the ranks of Guwahati continue to drop in the Swachh Survekshan. From 312 in 2021, the number dropped to 342 in 2022 and 402 out of 446 in the Swachh Survekshan in 2023. With its position in the bottom fifty of the list, citizens have now raised questions as to why the city continues to go down on the list despite spending crores of rupees on various projects under the Guwahati Smart City (GSC) project.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs conducts this annual operation to find the cleanest cities and towns in the country. This year, a total of 446 local urban bodies participated in the main category, which is for cities and towns with a population of more than one lakh.
The reports for the year 2023 were released last week and put Guwahati at 402 out of 446 participants, while painting a very unclean picture of the city. It mentioned that the local urban body of the city, which is the Guwahati Municipality Corporation (GMC), could handle only 46% of the waste generated in the city, while garbage segregation at source remains at a negligible 3% and the overall cleanliness of residential and market neighbourhoods remained at 17% each. Guwahati bagged a total of 2014.40 points out of the total of 9500 points.
Although the mayor mentioned that steps are underway to improve the conditions of the city, the citizens do not seem to be very happy about the results. One resident of the Bharalumukh locality said, "We do not understand why the city keeps performing worse year after year, although the GMC authorities continue to pump in crores of rupees into the system. Every now and then, they procure new equipment worth fortunes, but a few months later, they land up parked on the side of some road in the city. We are not sure if the conditions will ever improve or if the money will continue to flow in vain."
Another citizen living in the nursery locality said, "Although they keep on bringing in some new fancy tech like the recent QR-based garbage collection, they have not been able to streamline the process. Only when they give some proper interest and research to solving the problems rather than simply claiming that every step they take will resolve the problems and later forgetting about the same, will the city be clean."
But the ball still remains in the court of GMC as to how they will continue forward and whether Guwahati will ever be able to climb the chart or continue to fall.
Also Read: Poor garbage infrastructure: Citizens claim Guwahati Municipal Corporation overlooks problems
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