No invite to Mumbai at award ceremony honouring India's 10 cleanest cities

Ironically, despite BMC's efforts, open defecation is still rife in the city due to a shortage of toilets. FILE PIC FOR REPRESENTATION

Here's a dirty truth: despite being declared Open Defecation Free (ODF), Mumbai may have slipped from its top 10 ranking on the Swachh Survekshan list. While Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) received an invite to the awards ceremony in New Delhi to honour the country's 10 cleanest cities, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had no such card at its doorstep.

Today morning, under the Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM), the Union Ministry of Urban Development (UD) is all set to announce the Swacch Survekshan rankings for 2017. Last year, the country's richest municipal corporation, BMC had performed well and managed to bag the 10th rank in the list of 73 cities with a population of over 10 lakhs.

No intimations this year
A senior official from BMC said, "Last year, when Mumbai was in the top ten list, the UD ministry had sent a personal invite to the municipal commissioner to attend the award function. However, this year there have been no intimations from the ministry for Mumbai. There are chances that Mumbai may have slipped out of the top 10. The ministry has sent invitation to the state's Urban Development department for NMMC."

In the past year, BMC has taken a lot of initiatives to eliminate open defecation in the city, by increasing the number of toilets and even roping in actor Salman Khan for its campaign. In December 2016, it had rushed to declare Mumbai as ODF, conveniently excluding areas that fall under the Mumbai Port Trust land, Railways and Central Government.

ODF claims fall flat?
In January, the Centre's team from Quality Council of India (QCI) visited Mumbai to verify BMC's ODF claim and found open defecation at several places. BMC managed to get the ODF certificate only after QCI team's February visit. In January and February, the Centre conducted QCI survey to review sanitation conditions in India's 73 major cities.

The ranking is based on the city's strategy to curb open defecation, apart from integrated waste management system, information and behaviour-change communication, door-to-door collection, sweeping, transportation, processing and disposal of waste and provision for public, community and individual toilets. Ironically, despite BMC's efforts, open defecation is still rife in the city due to a shortage of toilets.

Two reasons why
Another official from BMC said, "Open defecation and waste disposal could have been a big reason for Mumbai's poor performance. Scientific processing of waste in the Deonar and Mulund dumping ground is far from reality. The civic body has only managed to start the waste processing in the Kanjurmarg ground."

Official added, "Another reason could be the tussle between state government and BMC over the ODF issue. State government, in its survey to check ODF, had made a contradictory report and said there are several places in the city where open defecation is still happening."