Team Herald
PANJIM: The capital city has slipped from the 16th position to 90th position among the cleanest cities in the country, in the Swachh Sarvekshan 2017 report released on Thursday by the Union Ministry for Urban Development.
The inability to make Panjim open defecation free (ODF) and lack of capacity building and monitoring system initiatives, marred the city’s image as a clean city in the country.
Evaluated on five broad parameters, Panjim scored 1271 out of 2000 based on the self-declaration by the Corporation of the City of Panaji, on-site observation and citizens’ feedback.
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 ODF by scoring 60 points against the national average of 103 and the best performance by Surendranagar – Dudhrej which scored 270 points.
Panjim has scored poorly also on the parameter of capacity building and monitoring system initiatives by scoring 16 against the national average of 20 and the city of Saharsa in Bihar scoring the highest, 45 points.
However, Goa’s capital has received above the national average scores in on-site observation by the team of the ministry with 357 points of 500 and citizens’ feedback who evaluated the city with 319 points of 600. A total of 644 citizen feedback forms were received by the agency.
