Continuous trash piling and garbage burning irks Pune citizens; question PMC’s 5-star rating
Continuous trash piling and garbage burning irks Pune citizens; question PMC's 5-star rating
The city’s citizens are criticizing PMC’s five-star rating from the Center for its waste management practices, citing daily piles of trash left unattended in their neighbourhood.
For the seventh consecutive year, Indore has been named the cleanest city in India, and Surat shared first place in the Union government’s “Swachh Survekshan Awards 2023.” Pune came in at number ten overall, down from number nine the year before.
Pune City came in second place in Maharashtra, behind Navi Mumbai, which came in third in the country’s ranking of cities with more than a million inhabitants. Pune Municipal Corporation received five stars for being a garbage-free city.
Civic activists stated that there is much room for improvement for PMC to truly attain the garbage-free status, and the rating is still only on paper.
According to a resident of Undri, cleaning operations are inconsistent. They frequently notice that only a portion of the space is cleaned every day. PMC needs to organize cleaning drives everywhere. She said, “I firstly doubt the survey that was conducted. When was this held ? Why weren’t the citizens informed ? What were the parameters on which the rating was announced ? There is a long way to go to achieve this star rating and Pune seems to be in a very primary stage.
Pune city received a perfect score in the report for the cleanliness of residential areas, waste generation against processing, water bodies, and public restrooms. The city received scores of 99% for waste collection from door to door, 97% for source-level garbage segregation, and 99% for market area cleanliness.
Another resident claimed that surveys are the basis for PMC’s ratings. However, the municipal administration is inconsistent in practice. Not all waste processing facilities are operating to their full potential. Although annual cleanliness rankings are released, garbage problems persist among the locals. PMC should first initiate functioning of its garbage disposal units as well as make the crematoriums smoke free. There are still many of these projects which are non-functional. The public urinals are still in pathetic condition.
