SDC Founder Anoop Nautiyal was invited as the Chief Guest at the Rajpur Road Vyapar Samiti, Dehradun get-together. During the event, Anoop addressed urban challenges in Dehradun and discussed the potential role of the influential trade body.
Uttarakhand is one of the fastest urbanizing states in India with Dehardun leading from the front. The mountain terrain of Uttarakhand and the continuing challenge of unabated migration makes the issue of urbanization complex and challenging. Cities like Dehradun have witnessed rapid growth far beyond their capacities.
Anoop spoke about several recent data driven competitions by the Government of India that have explicitly exposed the poor performance of Dehradun’s urban frameworks. He shared that Swachh Survekshan 2021 was the world’s largest sanitation survey which covered 4320 cities across India. The results were announced in November 2021 where Indore won the title of ‘Cleanest City’ for the fifth consecutive time. The Swachh Survekshan methodology looks at cities and towns in two manners: a national level overview for cities and a zonal overview for smaller towns. The evaluation was done under three different metrics: Service Level Progress (SLP), Citizen Voice and Certifications with a total of 6000 marks.
The results yielded a mixed bag for the six biggest cities of Uttarakhand, namely; Dehradun, Roorkee, Haridwar, Haldwani, Kashipur and Rudrapur. With its rank of 82 amongst 369 cities across the country in the 1-10 lakh population category, the city of Dehradun managed to enter the much coveted "100 Top Cities" category for the first time during the past 5 years.
While a lot of attention has been paid to the recent, poor Swachh Survekshan results in Uttarakhand, results of two other national Swachhata competitions have gone unnoticed. In both cases the performance of Dehradun was unsatisfactory and the city needs to focus and work much harder on the systemic issue of waste management. Resource allocation, capacity building and citizen engagement are crucial to perform better in these competitions.
Dehradun got the 52rd rank amongst 72 cities in the 3-10 lakh population category in the Safai Mitra Suraksha challenge. Its performance was equally dismal in the Garbage Free Cities competition.
Anoop suggested several actions to improve the civic situation in Dehradun. For this to happen, improved coordination amongst various agencies like MDDA, Dehradun Smart City Limited, Education and Health Departments, Nagar Nigam, Pollution Control Board, Planning Department, RTO, Police, Jal Nigam and Jal Sansthan, UPCL, Disaster Management and all other relevant departments is crucial.
He added that it is clear that sanitation has not been a key priority for Dehradun. Keeping in mind the city ecosystem, it is imperative for it to invest and create a robust solid waste management system where waste management processes are streamlined. It is important to note here that environment friendliness, cost effectiveness and acceptability from the local community are major factors which impact efficient solid waste management systems. Going ahead, Dehradun must recognize that waste is a resource and Nagar Nigam needs to do its best to reuse, recycle and upcycle waste.
