ONGOLE: Chirala municipality bagged Swachh Survekshan 2020 award instituted by the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) under sanitation management category. The other towns and cities from Andhra Pradesh that won the awards are Vijayawada (Krishna), Tirupati and Palamaner (Chittoor), and Atmakur and Mummidivaram (East Godavari).
Swachh Mahotsava ceremony, will be conducted online on August 20 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will present the awards to the 12 winners.
Swachh Survekshan has been instituted by MoUD to foster a healthy competition between cities and towns for improving cleanliness standards. The survey is conducted by the Quality Council of India. The parameters considered for the survey include waste collection, transportation, municipal solid waste processing and disposal, open defecation-free status, education and behavioural change and capacity building programmes.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, Chirala municipal commissioner K Ramachandra Reddy thanked the sanitation and administrative staff for working in coordination to ensure that the town is clean and tidy. He also gave the credit to people for cooperating with the municipal staff in making the cleanliness drives and plastic ban campaign a success.
Chirala has nearly 23,600 households with 1,00,000 population. It has 33 municipal wards with 272 sanitation workers and 24 ward secretariats. The municipality has successfully enforced a ban on use of plastic bags and encouraged decentralised composting to manage solid waste. It has also popularised ‘Waste to Wealth’ concept by setting up compost and vermicompost units.