Even
as the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs revised its guidelines for
Swachh Survekshan 2018 (clean city ranking), Tiruchi City Corporation
has geared up to meet them in order to improve its ranking.

Tiruchi
secured sixth position among 434 cities in the 2017 ranking and third
among 73 cities in 2016. It was adjudged the second cleanest city in the
country when the Swachh Survekshan system was introduced for the first
time in 2015.

However, in order to provide an opportunity to
smaller cities, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has proposed
to cover 4,041 towns in the 2018 survey that will be conducted in
January-February.

While 500 cities with more than one lakh
population and capitals of States and Union Territories will have all
India ranking, 3,541 cities with less than one lakh population will have
state and zonal rankings.

Citizen feedback

Corporation Commissioner-cum-Special Officer, Tiruchi, N. Ravichandran told The Hindu
that as per the new guidelines, rankings would be based on 71
sanitation-related parameters with different weightage. Similarly, the
cumulative marks had also gone up to 4,000 from 2,000. More weightage
would be given to citizen feedback. There was also negative marking.

While
Tiruchi city was a top performer in clean city ranking since 2015,
there was a need to take several more steps to improve the ranking. The
ranking methodology had become tougher this year. However, the city
could improve its ranking by involving various stakeholders including
citizens. It had started addressing each and every issue as per the
revised guidelines, he added.