Swachh Bharat Mission

Our cities, today, appear doomed under the threat of the dreaded coronavirus. Faced with a ‘novel’ virus, researchers have been continuously trying to keep pace with its various mutated strains, and come up with proven ways of transmission, prevention and cure. In studies related to the first, a team at Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering has found that public toilets, with cramped spaces, heavy foot traffic and inadequate ventilation, could be a hotbed of spread, as flushing a toilet generates large quantities of microbe-containing aerosols (depending on design, type etc). COVID risk in public toilets In…

Launched in 2015, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), has come a long way. The programme made sure that cleanliness and sanitation found a place in India’s governance landscape. The programme was aimed at transforming the behaviour of the masses on issues of sustainable waste management.  To further strengthen and evaluate the performance of the mission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India (GoI) kick started India’s first and largest cleanliness survey, Swachh Survekshan in 2016. Since, then the survey has evolved significantly, engaging citizens, administrative systems and civil society towards creating a robust waste management system. Swachh…

Palampur is a picturesque Himalayan town in Kangra district, in the foothills of the majestic Dhauladhar mountains and the gateway to the popular Kullu-Manali tourist destinations. Surrounded by lush green tea gardens growing the famous Kangra tea, which was first planted in Palampur, the town is also home to CSIR’s Institute of Biosource Technology. Sadly, barring some localities and the town’s peripheral belt, the once pretty lanes of this town are today lined with garbage heaps dumped haphazardly at some spots.  “We need to find answers to fix this problem,” said former Chief Minister Shanta Kumar, who hails from Palampur.…

In mid December 2018, the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s performance audit on Solid Waste Management (SWM) in 35 test-checked Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Karnataka was tabled at the state assembly. The report painted a rather sorry picture of the way these civic bodies had been going about the task of solid waste management in their municipalities and called out instances of flawed collection, ineffectual bans on plastic, faulty handling of e-waste and unauthorised slaughter houses among various other gaps. However, that is not where the CAG indictment of the ULBs ended. As per Paragraph 7.2 of…

In 2015-16 the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) had conducted a survey, in which Alappuzha in Kerala came out on top as the cleanest city in the country. Panjim in Goa came second. However, in the recently concluded Swachh Survekshan 2017, the government survey to rank cities on the basis of cleanliness and sanitation, Alappuzha was ranked 380 - among the bottom 100, and the worst among cities in Kerala. Panjim, which has achieved complete segregation and has successfully done without a landfill, was ranked 90. The Alappuzha system Alappuzha, which had a centralised system of waste collection and…