The public feedback for the annual clean city ranking under Swacch Survekshan 2023 conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affair ended on Thursday, August 31, and Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) made a final push in its quest for high ranking.
The Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) had launched a drive to encourage public to provide their feedback on the state of the city as part of Swacch Survekshan 2023, the results of which are expected to be announced in September.
The MCC drive covered educational institutions, NGOs, individual citizens, public institutions etc. and there was the involvement of volunteers as well which led to more than 69,000 people responding and taking the survey after downloading the Swachhata App.
However, MCC Health Officer Dr. D.G. Nagaraj said that though more than 69,000 people have responded, it has transpired that due to some technical glitch, many feedbacks by individuals have not been recorded and this has been brought to the notice of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). Though the target was to get the feedback of at least 10 per cent of the population (based on 2011 census), the MCC may fall short of it.
The numbers are important because Mysuru tends to score relatively low under the Citizens Voice or Citizens Feedback category. During SS-2022, Citizens’ Voice had 2250 marks but under SS-2023, it is 2475 and hence, is considered crucial to secure a higher ranking. Also, the total number of marks in SS-2023 has been increased to 9500 where as it was 7500 for SS-2022.
Service Level Progress will have 4525 marks, certification has been assigned 2500 marks and public feedback has been assigned 2475 marks under SS-2023, said Dr. Nagaraj.
The weightage accorded to different categories under Service Level Progress has also been revised for the SS-2023. Segregated weight collection will be accorded 1750 marks up from 900 marks in 2022 and processing and disposal will have 1830 marks as against 1200 marks in 2022. On both these counts MCC is expected to score well and hence, the chances of boosting the overall score and hence the overall ranking is also high, according to officials.
Though Mysuru has consistently been ranked high among the clean cities, its overall ranking among cities with a population of over 1 lakh has dropped from the 1st and the cleanest among the cities in 2016 to 15th place in 2021 while it was ranked 8th in the 2022 survey.
Swachh Survekshan was introduced by MoHUA in 2016 and the competition was an effort to encourage the cities to outdo each other in terms of maintaining cleanliness and urban sanitation. What began with 73 cities in 2016 expanded and covered 4355 urban local bodies in SS-2022.
