How clean do you think Bengaluru is? Would you like to rate the city in terms of its hygiene and sanitation? If yes, then here is an opportunity for you to participate in the Swachh Bharath Mission survey and rank your city.

The Central government has taken up a new cleanliness survey of 75 major cities across the country under its ambitious Swachh Bharath Mission. With Bengaluru being one of the 75 cities, city-dwellers who are happy or unhappy about the city’s solid waste management and sanitation scenario can voluntarily be a part of the survey.

For this, all you have to do is to call up a national toll-free number and reply to the multiple choice questions. As soon as as you call the toll free number, the call will be disconnected from the other end and you will get a return call within a few seconds. A voice in Kannada will welcome you for being a part of the Swachh Bharath Survey and place two language options before you to choose – Kannada or English. Then you will be asked to dial the local pincode.

Once you dial the code, you will be given six questions, with each question having four choices. The first three questions are related to solid waste management in your area, followed by two questions on public toilet facility in the locality and a question on toilet facility at home. The phone call survey which was started on January 5th, will be open till January 15th.

What is Swachh Bharat city ranking survey?

Less than a year ago, the Central government conducted cleanliness city survey to rank 476 cities in the country based on their sanitation and hygiene. The survey report was released on August 8th in which Mysuru topped the list. To one’s surprise, Bengaluru which is infamous as garbage city stood at 7th place in the overall ranking, and highest rank among all the state capitals. Apart from these two cities, Mandya and Hassan too had made it to top 10.

However, this survey came under criticism for having adopted improper methodology and including untrained surveyors. To overcome the shortcomings in the previous survey, in the last week of December, the Ministry of Urban Development commissioned yet another survey.

This survey is being conducted from January 5th and 20th, in 75 major cities including 53 cities with above 10 lakh population and capital cities. The new survey concentrates on cleanliness and health facilities, toilets in every house and community / public toilet facilities in cities. Unlike the previous survey where solid waste management was given least importance (13 per cent), the new survey emphasises on it with 60 per cent marks given on SWM. Apart from this, 30 per cent weightage is given to household, community and public toilets and 10 per cent is reserved for ranking initiatives taken to create awareness, education and behavioural change towards improving cleanliness in the city.

The survey is conducted using three methodologies. The first methodology is through field visits by expert teams, the second method is through obtaining information from public through questionnaires and third method is by way of toll free phone call.

If the previous survey was criticised for having conducted by untrained surveyors, the government claims that the latest survey is conducted by 110 trained surveyors. The Central government has roped in non-profit and autonomous body – Quality Council of India to conduct the survey.

The result of the survey will be announced on January 25th.