With participatory mechanism absent, Chennai falls in Swachh Bharat rankings

Chennai: The Greater Chennai Corporation’s unilateral decision-making process where its citizens, who are the actual stakeholders, are mere onlookers is how the city earned a low ranking for a second straight year, according to experts.

Corporation officials pulled no strings when asked to comment on the city’s ranking as they placed blame on “poor citizen feedback” as one of the reasons.

“A lot of people did not give feedback. Perhaps, there was not much awareness among public to take part in the survey,” said a senior official.

“It is disappointing because this means that there was little public recognition for the good work that we did post floods, as the survey only took place in January,” the official added.

But experts were of the opinion that, perhaps, the corporation is only experiencing the backlash of not involving residents when deciding on providing infrastructure meant for them.

Trichy corporation’s commissioner M. Vijayalakshmi, in a brief interaction with DC repeatedly emphasised the importance of “public co-operation” for the high ranking the city earned.

“Tiruchy has a participatory mechanism that is way better than Chennai. Here, it is the councillors and the bureaucrats who decide upon everything between themselves,” said former bureaucrat M.G. Devasahayam.

“When there is no consultative mechanism, then solutions will never be found. In Chennai, there is a lot of chaos,” he added.

Former Mayor M. Subramanian was of the opinion that “people will tell only what they see.”

“Waste management system in Chennai corporation is a failure. The key task for any government or council is that they keep adding on the infrastructure to the public. After the city expanded, the present council has failed in its responsibility to build more toilets for the public,” he said.

Though some believed that the rankings are skewed, in the sense that it pitted mega cities with second-tier and other smaller cities, the fact is that the corporation has failed to improve civic infrastructure in the one year since the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched.

“The city lacks planning. The basic infrastructure like toilets is poor and the corporation has failed in this aspect. However, we also need to understand as citizens we have not been helping out the government in improving cleanliness,” said actor and Chennai resident, Khushbu Sundar.

But is there something that Chennai can learn from cities like Tiruchy or Mysuru, which have consistently performed well in these rankings?

Bengaluru-based NGO Environment Support Group’s coordinator, Leo F. Saldanha told DC that Mysuru’s success is built on its “historically strong” community participation. “Also Mysuru’s place in the tourism industry demands a certain level of cleanliness. There is a certain political and business interest in keeping the city elite,” Saldanha said.

“The rankings only showcase perceptive analysis and not a deeper analysis because locals will tell you that it is not the Mysuru of 10 years ago. Dumping grounds have cropped up in the peri-urban areas of Mysuru too,” he added.
Not one to lose hope, corporation officials are still looking at the brighter side. “We have improved a bit from last year’s Swachh Bharat ranking. Next year, we will be in top 10,” said a senior official.