NEW DELHI: In a first pan-India survey to measure citizen connect with sanitation outcomes impacting lives of 40 crore people, Centre on Monday launched Swachh Survekshan-2018. The survey will rank 4,041 cities and towns of the country based on infrastructure development for improved sanitation services and their sustainability, outcomes, citizen connect and visible impact on ground.
Minister of housing and urban affairs Narendra Singh Tomar launched the survey, the third in the series and released a comprehensive survey tool kit, explaining the methodology, weightage and new features and thrust areas that help cities and towns prepare for the field survey over the next six months.
Durga Shanker Mishra, secretary(Housing & Urban Affairs) said that keeping in view the need for citizen involvement in assessing progress in sanitation and outcomes to be felt on ground, total weightage for Citizen feedback and independent observation of sanitation have been increased by 10% over that of 2017 Survey.
Stressing on the need for ensuring sustainability of improved sanitation levels and maintenance of the sanitation infrastructure being created, Mishra said, “the latest survey will assess availability of water connections to toilets, recovery of Operation & Maintenance costs of Community and Public toilets and SWM infrastructure through user charges, advertisement revenue, municipal taxes etc.”
Ensuring rigorous scrutiny of claims of cities about physical progress in improvement in sanitation infrastructure and service levels, huge negative marking in respect of all parameters in this regard has been introduced this time. Under this, if claims of city governments are found to be incorrect by independent assessors, they will get 33% negative marks besides zero marks in respect of such parameters.
Anthem to ensure more public participation
The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs also released a song with opening line ‘Swachhata Ki Jyot Jagi Hai’(The flame of sanitation has been lit) as the anthem for the survey. The song was released by minister of state for heavy industries and public enterprises Babul Supriyo,
The song conceived by Supriyo has been scripted by lyricist Prasoon Joshi.