RAMNATH N PAI RAIKAR | NT
PANAJI: A study carried out by the Smart City project cell of the Corporation of the City of Panaji has discovered serious error on the part of the Quality Council of India, the surveying agency for the Swachh Survekshan 2017, which pushed the capital city of Panaji from 16th position to 90th position – a fall of 74 ranks – in the list of cleanest cities of the country. The exercise was carried out by QCI for the Union ministry of urban development.
The CCP has maintained that it would soon bring this error to the notice of the central government, and hopefully get a higher ranking in the cleanest city list.
The project cell of the CCP maintained that although the QCI had carried out the survey for Panaji city, somewhere afterwards, the entire profile of the Panaji city was changed as Goa city, thus totally disorienting Swachh Survekshan 2017 – an annual exercise of ranking of cities on the basis of their cleanliness and other aspects of urban sanitation – as far as Panaji is concerned. “Panaji has therefore fared badly in two parameters namely use of Swachhata app for citizen assistance/citizen feedback, and the staff of the corporation linked to waste management as well as sanitation service undergoing ‘Swachhata’ training course,” the project cell maintained, “and that too in spite of performing exceedingly well in these two parameters”.
Stating that but for the grave error the city of Panaji would have been among the first 50 cleanest cities in the country, City mayor Surendra Furtado said the CCP would now review the survey and send a letter to the Union ministry of urban development as regards correcting the error.
“The entire context of the survey changed when Panaji city became Goa city,” he said.
A similar survey conducted last year had placed Panaji city at 16th position in a list of 75 clean cities, while this year, ‘Goa city’ has slide down to the 90th position among 434 cleanest cities declared.
A representative of the Smart City project cell of the CCP said that Swachhata app is an important component of the Swachh Survekshan 2017, and the CCP had used it appropriately to get a feedback/opinions from 619 citizens.
“By addressing the issues of the citizens through the particular app, we had proved the efficiency of the corporation,” he noted, pointing out, “However, the error on the part of the surveying agency gave Panaji city zero marks in the particular parameter, as the Swachhata app for Panaji became Swachhata app for Goa.”
It was also maintained that in spite of all the engineers and sanitary inspectors under the waste management cell of the corporation having undergone training course in cleanliness, the QCI failed to record the related data, and therefore, the defective survey was unable to provide any marks to Panaji city in this parameter too.
