Nagpur: Even as all eyes are fixed on the next round of Swachh Survekshan, the path to score good appears far from Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), thanks to the roads riddled with potholes in the city. NMC has received a kit for the 2020 Swachh Bharat Survekshan, which has three broad parameters; infrastructure availability, maintenance of road premises and equipment, and feedback from commuters for rating roads on overall cleanliness, under the Swachh Bharat Survey. Bad roads or potholed roads would cost NMC 163 marks. In 2019, Nagpur city stood 58th in the Swachh survey.
More recently, NMC has earned a dubious distinction for bad roads and poor maintenance of traffic signals. Civic activist and secretary of Vidarbha Taxpayers Association (VTA) Tejinder Singh Renu admitted that Nagpur will face an extreme challenge due to new parameters of Swachh infrastructure. “As a majority of roads in Nagpur are under construction, our current roads condition, water drainage, street markings and cleanliness is certainly not up to the mark. Therefore, maintaining our position will be a big challenge for city administration,” he pointed out. “I believe such change of parameters by ministry of urban development is deliberate so that all city administrations concentrate on road conditions, which need to be good with the monsoon around the corner.
Bad roads in the rainy season makes road usage extremely dangerous, especially for two-wheeler users,” he added. Our city administration needs to be strict about contractors, including those of MSRDC, NHAI and NIT, as roads are not repaired even after other work is completed. The service roads are in a pathetic condition, which makes riding absolutely miserable during monsoon. “If roads are not made motorable soon, I fear a drastic drop in city’s rating in next Swachh Bharat rankings,” he said.
Another challenge for NMC this year will be to remain on its toes through the year, as from this year Swachh Bharat assessment would be undertaken on a quarterly basis. This move comes after many cities slipped, and were not able to maintain hygiene once they got a decent ranking on cleanliness levels in the previous Swachh surveys, and NMC was no exception. The quarterly rank of cities will play a crucial role in their annual ranking in Swachh Survekshan 2020 because of the 25% weight given to the quarterly assessment, said the official. The annual assessment will be conducted between January and February 2020, he said.
