Burning Bhandewadi Puts NMC Swachh Survey On Backburner
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Nagpur: The
Swachh Bharat Mission
's Tripartite Evaluation Committee, which was scheduled to assess Nagpur's performance in the national cleanliness rankings during the last week of April, postponed its visit following a massive fire at the Bhandewadi dumping yard on April 19. The blaze, which took nearly 10 days to extinguish, forced
Nagpur Municipal Corporation
(NMC) officials and staff to focus all efforts on firefighting and restoration, disrupting preparations for the evaluation.
"A verbal discussion was held with the Tripartite Evaluation Committee, during which the committee granted a one-week extension as it was busy with surveys in another city. It's true that the entire department was engaged in controlling the fire at Bhandewadi, yet we were fully prepared for the survey. The committee can conduct the inspection any time," confirmed a senior official from the NMC's solid waste management department.
The committee is now expected to visit the city next week to inspect various components of urban sanitation, including the solid waste management process at Bhandewadi and the functioning of the sewage treatment plant.
The Tripartite Evaluation is a critical component of the
Swachh Survekshan
process, conducted annually by the central govt to validate the documentation and claims submitted by municipal bodies. Nagpur's assessment will be carried out across two categories — Water Plus-Plus and Garbage-Free City — with a total of 2,500 points at stake. Two separate teams are deployed to evaluate these categories.
The NMC earned the Water Plus-Plus tag for the last two years, primarily due to its initiative to supply treated sewage water to state-run power utility Mahagenco, generating revenue in the process. This category, worth 1,200 points, evaluates liquid waste management, availability and maintenance of public and community toilets, and the cleanliness of city drains. The Garbage-Free City category, assessed for 1,300 points, focuses on door-to-door waste collection, segregation of wet and dry waste, and the overall efficiency of waste disposal systems.
Though officials claimed that all preparations for the evaluation were completed, the fire and its aftermath led to a temporary suspension of the civic body's readiness on the ground. NMC's advisory agency, KPMG, which assists in coordinating the site visits and documentation, also conveyed its inability to proceed with the evaluation due to the fire situation.
Meanwhile, senior NMC officials maintain that the delay was also due to scheduling constraints on the part of the evaluation committee, which was engaged in similar assessments in other districts.
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