Bengaluru: No surprise! Adding to the unenviable cachet of Garbage city comes the Union Urban Development Ministry damning comment on Saturday that the IT capital Bengaluru was not Open Defecation Free!
Swachch Bharat Mission joint secretary Praveen Prakash said after a review meeting with the state top bureaucrats, that the appalling hygiene on the city's streets crossed it off the list of Open Defecation Free (ODF) cities.
"While neighbouring states are inching towards zero open defecation in the urban areas, Karnataka has only three among 28 cities and towns, which are ODF. These three cities are Mysuru, Mangaluru and Udupi," he said. Bengaluru doesn't even come close!
He said Delhi was the best among the cities as it has a Google map based toilet locator, and a feedback system to rate the standard of the toilets. "When will Bengaluru have a Google map based toilet locator?" Mr Prakash asked red-faced bureaucrats.
Mr Prakash said there are about 500 cities and towns in the country which have achieved 100% ODF. Kerala is inching towards becoming 100% ODF. Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai have achieved 100% ODF," adding sarcastically, "People in Delhi want to know when Bengaluru will become an ODF city.”
“Andhra Pradesh has 110 urban areas with zero ODF, 178 in Gujarat, 100 in Maharashtra and 40 in Tamil Nadu," he added. The SBM director observed that the Union Government has set a target to have ODF India by 2019, adding that the union government is going to make segregation of waste at source mandatory across India from June 5.
Explaining the rationale behind the Swachch Bharat cess, Mr Prakash pointed out that the union government has collected Rs 30,000 crore in three years, which boils down to Rs 10,000 crore per year.
"The annual expenditure on SBM is Rs 2,000 crore for urban areas and Rs 8,000 for rural areas. Apart from it, Rs 10,000 crore has been earmarked for treating and recycling sewage to stop pollution of water bodies," he said.
