Swachh Bharat: A Year On, A Reality Check From A Delhi Neighbourhood

In a government report, areas under the BJP-controlled Municipal Corporation of Delhi, ranked at 379 in the list of 476.

New Delhi:  It has been exactly one year since Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan – the ambitious drive to clean India of filth by 2019. But in places like East Delhi’s Geeta Colony, tucked away from the glare of visitors to India’s capital city, residents say there has been little difference.

The neighbourhood is caught between what residents say is a ‘garbage crisis’. “The Swachh Bharat campaign is merely keeping prime areas of the city garbage free while others like us suffer,” Satish, a resident, said.

A canal where garbage is dumped hasn’t been cleaned in months posing a serious threat to people’s health, residents of Geeta Colony say. The East Delhi Municipal Corporation is managed by corporators from Prime Minister Modi’s BJP.

This is the state of many of areas across Delhi as residents complain of garbage and filth spilling on the streets and residential areas.

By the numbers released by the Urban Development Ministry, progress of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has been slow. In the plan to build solid waste management systems in 1,000 cities by 2019, there has been a 0.2 per cent success rate. Of the 25 lakh household toilets planned in the same period, less than one fifth – about 4.6 lakh – have been built in the first year.

In a report by the same Ministry, areas under the BJP-controlled Municipal Corporation of Delhi, ranked at a lowly 379 in the list of 476 cities while the New Delhi Municipal Council ranked at a high of 16.

Chitra Mukherjee, manager of Chintan a non-profit that works towards environmental research says that the only way Delhi can improve cleanliness is if a comprehensive waste management system is put into place.

“Involving waste pickers to do door-to-door collection will also save MCD a huge amount of money,” he said.

The Union Minister of Urban Development Venkaiah Naidu however says that he is optimistic. “It is a huge country of 12 crore people. Considering it is our first year, we have made great progress,” he said.