Four years into the Centre’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SMB), swachhta–or cleanliness–remains an elusive prospect in Gurugram. Open-defecation is still prevalent in areas including Chakkarpur, Sikanderpur, Ghata Village, Dundahera and Kapashera—all hotspots of informal housing. The problem of poor sanitation is also exacerbated by improper waste management practices prevalent across the city and an ailing drainage system, which relies on the labour of disadvantaged manual scavengers and ragpickers.
Over the last few months, incidents such as dumping of untreated, mixed waste and leachate run-off at Bandhwari, fake images being used on the municipality’s Swachh Map app, lack of waste segregation at waste transfer stations, unauthorised dumps in the Aravallis as well as within city limits, and poor sewage conditions have all been reported by the Hindustan Times, calling into question the city’s adherence to SBM targets.
However, the state government maintains that the campaign has been a local success. In the last Swachh Survekshan Survey, Gurugram ranked 105 out of 4,203 cities, up 7 places from its 2016 rank of 112. Moreover, the state government also granted Gurugram the ‘open defecation free’ status in October 2017, despite clear presence of the practice in both urban and rural Gurugram.
Residents, for their part, aren’t taking authorities’ claims at face value. One of them, environmentalist Vivek Kamboj, believes that there is neither any administrative willpower nor infrastructure to make the goals of Swachh Bharat a reality.
“In so many instances, the municipality is violating rules that it is meant to enforce. For example, it will fine smaller players for unauthorised dumping, but itself allow such dumping to continue in Bandhwari, or near the Sector 29 police station,” he said, highlighting the absence of any cohesive action plan towards cleanliness.
From dumping mixed waste in the Aravallis to dispatching sewage in storm water drains, all these go against the principles of Swachh Bharat, which, Kamboj said, is an otherwise laudable initiative. “Even public toilets suffer from poor maintenance or have been locked up. What is the point?” he asked. Besides, these toilets are all connected to an ineffective sewage system, backflow from which often spills onto the streets.
Gurugram municipal commissioner Yashpal Yadav, however, said that the urban local body (ULB) department was committed to meeting the goals of the SBM.
“We will do so in time for the Mission’s October 2019 deadline,” he said, adding that it would take more vigilance, improved infrastructure and stricter enforcement of rules to accomplish all the SBM goals.
Experts also highlighted another glaring concern—quantum of waste produced and the rate at which waste production is growing.
Rekha Singh, an environment expert certified by the Quality Council of India, said the issue here is not just of waste management, points out that to make the city clean, you have to stop producing waste as well. “On the contrary, the current contract between the concessionaire and the MCG, encourages the production of waste for a proposed power plant, which is not even functional. Where is all this waste going? On the streets,” she said.
Gurugram’s current infrastructure for waste management, which includes 300 waste collection vehicles and three transfer stations—with no facility for waste treatment or segregation—is not enough to mitigate the harmful effects of the 850-odd tonnes of waste the city produces every day, said multiple experts and residents.
Ankit Aggarwal, CEO of Ecogreen Energy, which has been managing waste in the city since August 2017, pointed out some improvements that the company is trying to make.
“Before we stepped in, there was no door-to-door waste collection system. Open dumping was prevalent and there were no transfer stations in the city. On those counts, we have improved. Newer transfer stations and better outreach programmes in the remaining quarter of 2018 will ensure that our (Gurugram’s) rank in the next Swachh Survekshan Survey is better,” he said.
Egogreen Energy was recently fined by, both, the National Green Tribunal and the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram for not executing its duties effectively, and for violating the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.
First Published: Oct 02, 2018 13:39 IST
