Goa’s hopes of becoming the first ‘open defecation free’ state in the country seem to be thinning down as the capital city, Panjim, faced a major set-back at the recently released Swachh Sarvekshan 2017 report.
The capital city has slipped from the 16th position to 90th position in being the cleanest cities in the country and the major contributor was the city’s inability to make Panjim city open defecation free.
The cities were evaluated on waste collection, sweeping and transportation, processing and disposal of solid waste, open defecation free and availability of toilets, information, education and behaviour change of citizens and capacity building and monitoring system initiatives of the urban local body.
While Panjim scored above average on three fronts, the city has performed below the national average on the parameter of open defecation free by scoring 60 points against the national average of 103 and the best performance by Surendranagar – Dudhrej which scored 270 points.
However, Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) Mayor, Surendra Furtado blamed the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) for delaying the process to provide toilets to the residents in Panjim.
He informed that the city after undertaking a survey had concluded that about 200 individual household toilets (IHHT) would have to be constructed in the city for the residents.
“As a first phase project, we had proposed 50 toilets during the first year, 2016-17. However, due to the delay in approvals and sanctions from GSUDA, we were unable to complete the task and provide the toilets to the applicants”, he stated.
CCP had received 45 applications for the first round of providing IHHT, of which, 33 were processed and approved by the CCP and sent to GSUDA for providing grants.
To take care of open defecation where land was not available, the CCP proposed to construct community toilets.
However, reacting to the Swachh Sarvekshan 2017 report, he said that there are technical flaws in the report as some of the parameters, like the utilisation of Swachh Bharat Mission app had been flawed.
“We used the app to update all the details of work as demanded, but towards the end of the survey, the app instead of showing Panjim has taken into consideration the whole state of Goa as one city. Due to the Union Ministry’s goof-up the city lost 150 points which were very crucial in the rankings”, Furtado stated.
CCP Commissioner Deepak Desai informed that 16 wards of the CCP have achieved the status of being open defecation free. “We are working towards achieving the complete target and making Panjim city open defecation free. We will follow the process and hope to achieve it soon”, he added.
