Cities Can Get Negative Marking For Misinformation In Swachh Ranking
Taking note of the criticism in the last Swachh Surveys, the government has tweaked the norms for the Swachh Bharat Ranking 2018, where a municipal body will negative marking in the ranking of the cities for faking or misrepresentation progress of sanitation infrastructure, said a ministry official.
"The ministry has taken note of the misrepresentation of facts, and we have incorporated the provision of negative marking for the misrepresentation of the fact. If any municipal body is caught, misrepresenting fact, or any of the information incorrect, they will be get 33 per cent negative mark," said an official.
This mechanism has been introduced in the assessment methodology for Swachh Survey ranking of cities for 2018.
The Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, Narendra Singh Tomar informed that the methodology and weightages for Swachh Surekshan-2018 have been modified to certain extent based on extensive consultations with city and state governments, experts and other stakeholders and in line with the progress of Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban).
According to the ministry sources, many such instances came to light in the internal inquiry by the department. It was after such instances, the governmnet decided to include the new provisions for negative marking so that the cities and municipal bodies cannot think of manipulating and misrepresenting facts to get better ranking in the survey.
The survey methodology has has made other provisions, for example the total weightage for citizen feedback and Independent observation of sanitation have been increased by 10 per cent over that of 2017 survey.
Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra said that this has been incorporated, keeping in view the need for visible improvements in sanitation in urban areas to be felt on ground,and not just on statistics.
Another interesting factor which has been incorporated in the survey methodology is the weightage on innovation.The cities which have taken up innovative innovation practices will get additional weightage of 5 per cent over other cities.
The survey will also assess availability of water connections to toilets, recovery of operation and maintenance costs of community and public toilets and other infrastructure through user charges, advertisement revenue, municipal taxes etc, liquid waste management though treatment and septage disposal, segregation of municipal waste at source, over others.
The Survey Methodology seeks to capture the efforts under and outcomes of Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) as the cities move on from building toilets towards Solid Waste Management with emphasis on decentralized solutions, ensuring sustainability of improved sanitation infrastructure and services and enforcement.
The housing and urban affairs minister Narendra Singh Tomar launched the parameters on Monday, which will be used for assessment of 4,041 cities and towns, which have at least 40 crore people.
