NEW DELHI, Nov 1 - The State capitals of the Northeastern States are among 75 cities in the country where the Centre will conduct a survey to ascertain the sanitation scenario and subsequently rate them.
The survey, commissioned by Urban Development Ministry, is the first such since Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Swachh Bharat Mission in October last year and aligns with the objectives of the Mission.
Apart from New Delhi and State capitals, Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Pune, Visakhapatnam, Gurgaon, Kochi, Nagpur, Amritsar, Allahabad are among the 75 cities, which account for over 50 per cent of country�s total urban population, to be rated for its cleanliness.
The survey parameters have been aligned with the objectives of Swachh Bharat Mission with more focus on solid waste management which is adversely impacting cleanliness in urban areas, as per the directions of Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu.
The proposed survey and subsequent ratings, to be completed in January next year, is aimed at fostering a spirit of competition among the cities to ensure sanitation in urban areas, said a senior UD Ministry official.
In the proposed survey, solid waste management is being given 60 per cent weightage followed by 15 per cent each for availability and use of individual household toilets and public and community toilets besides five per cent each for city level sanitation plans and Information, Education and Behaviour Change Communication (IEBC) activities.
Under Swachh Bharat Mission, about Rs 37,000 crore of the project cost of Rs 62,009 crore is to be incurred on solid waste management.
In the last survey, for ranking 476 cities with a population of over one lakh each which was commissioned before the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission, solid waste management had a weightage of only 13 per cent.
Swachh Bharat Mission is aimed at ensuring door-to-door collection, transportation and scientific disposal of solid waste in all the 83,000 wards in urban areas by 2019 besides construction of one crore individual household toilets and over five lakh public and community toilets.
Among the cities to be surveyed are Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada from Andhra Pradesh, Guwahati from Assam, Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh, Ahmedabad and four other cities from Gujarat, Panaji in Goa, Srinagar from Jammu & Kashmir, Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad from Jharkhand, Bengaluru and Mysore from Karnataka, Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram from Kerala, Bhopal and three other cities from Madhya Pradesh.
Other cities include Imphal from Manipur, Shillong from Meghalaya, Aizawl from Mizoram, Kohima from Nagaland, Gangtok from Sikkim, Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Tiruchirapalli from Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad and Warangal from Telangana.
Eight cities from Uttar Pradesh include Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Noida and Agra.
Dehradun from Uttarakhand, Kolkata and Asansol-Durgapur from West Bengal are other cities in the list of 75 cities finalised by the Ministry for sanitation survey.
