Selective Swachh Bharat campaign leaves Muslims out 

Vineet Tiwari lives in Indore, the city which is the cleanest according to a survey commissioned by the Urban Development Ministry. The government’s ‘Swachh Survekshan’ conducted over 434 cities, it claimed, revealed that 83% people believe the cities are now cleaner and garbage collection improved.

But Tiwari, poet and vice president of Progressive Writers’ Association (Madhya Pradesh), is upset with the Swachh Bharat mission. Asked whether he has felt the difference, he complained, “In the name of cleanliness, people all day long are spreading noise pollution by playing songs loudly where I live.”

Singers Kailash Kher and Shaan, he added, would have received a lot of money to sing those songs as part of the Government’s campaign. But surely senior citizens are entitled to their afternoon nap?

The cleanliness drive, he added, was largely confined to gated communities and areas where bureaucrats live. Not much improvement is visible at public places, slums, railway stations and railway tracks, which continue to stink.

“Slogans are written on every other wall. The whole city looks like a grafitti. But in reality, thousands of the Safayi Karmcharis have been fired. They are jobless and not much thought is given to them.

Bhopal is the second cleanest city, according to the survey. Vivek Mishra, a resident of the Madhya Pradesh capital, points out that in comparison to several other cities, Bhopal has always been cleaner.

“But where Muslims live, the situation has actually worsened. Muslims are already marginalised. But the process of alienation has increased and they do not seem to have benefitted from the government’s cleanliness drive.”

He complained that in the area near railway station, where he lives, the drainage system has worsened.

However, Union Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday released the Swachh Survekshan 2017 report containing the ranking of 434 cities based on their level of cleanliness. On Tuesday, Venkaiah Naidu had said in a tweet that the survey results are very encouraging.

According to the report, which is based on a survey of 434 cities, Indore has been declared the cleanest city of the country by the Quality Council of India. Bhopal, capital city of Madhya Pradesh, came second. Mysore, which was the cleanest in 2016, came fifth and surprisingly, or not surprisingly, Delhi NCR occupied the 7th place.

The Ministry of Urban Development claimed in a statement on Tuesday, 83% of the respondent to the Swachh Survekshan 2017 report said that their localities were cleaner than the previous year and almost 82% found improvement in sanitation infrastructure and garbage collection. Eighty percent respondents said they had better access to community and public toilets.

The ground reality is quite different. People in Pune are still struggling to cope with heaps of uncollected garbage heaps and stink emanating from it, reports PTI.

Swachh Bharat, the report says, is a distant dream for those in Pune and the twin villages of Uruli Devachi and Phursungi, 25 kms from the city, who dug in their heels about two weeks ago and refused to allow dumping of garbage in the depot located near their homes.

The sprawling depot is where Pune dumps tons of garbage every day. The site also houses waste disposal and treatment plants.

The city generates 1,600 tons of garbage everyday, of which 1,000 tons is treated within city limits, while the rest is taken to the site near the twin villages, civic officials said.

The villagers, who have complained that their health was getting adversely affected by the dumping, on Wednesday staged a protest and took out a mock funeral of the garbage yard managed by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).