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Woman mayor made Indore a clean, litter-free city
Prem Sharma sells gutka and cigarettes near the Vijay Nagar square, but the most visible part of his tiny business is the dustbin that he dare not lose. Similar is the case with all small and big businesses across the city.
Prem Sharma sells gutka and cigarettes near the Vijay Nagar square, but the most visible part of his tiny business is the dustbin that he dare not lose. Similar is the case with all small and big businesses across the city.
“In Indore, people fear the yellow vehicles more than the police vehicles,” he said referring to the vehicles of the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) that patrol the city round the clock and penalise those spreading litter on the streets. The penalties for littering the city (population about 2 million) can be anything between Rs 100 and Rs 1 lakh and the IMC has done well last year, collecting spot fines to the tune of Rs 1 crore in the city.
"It's not just fear, people respect the work being done by the IMC," says Indore Mayor and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Malini Gaur. True, Prem Sharma takes pride in the fact that he is a resident of the city dubbed cleanest in India in a countrywide rating done by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.
The force behind the stupendous rise of Indore on the Swachh Survekshan Rankings is Mayor Malini Gaur. Indore rose from a low of 180 in 2015, to 25 in 2016 and finally to the number one rank among 434 cities in 2017.
"The day Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a call for Swachh Bharat from the ramparts of Red Fort in 2015, we decided to work on it," said Gaur who has another two years as Mayor.
With efforts on all fronts, including establishment of integrated solid waste management, the city has brought down the Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM) from 145 microgram per unit in 2015 to about 70 now, and there is plan to cut it to 40. The safe threshold is 100.
To keep the city spic and span, the IMC has a budget of Rs 400 crore under the Swachh Bharat Mission, but its operational cost is just Rs 160 crore after a capital investment of Rs 150 crore. "The idea is to keep the working cost low," said the Mayor. Individual households pay Rs 60 and commercial units pay Rs 90 per month for Clean Indore.
