Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation
MUMBAI: After being given a ‘zero star’ rating in Swachh Survey 2020 by the Centre earlier this week, BMC on May 21 raised questions over the process’ credibility.
In a letter by additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani to the joint secretary, ministry of housing and urban affairs, the civic body pointed to “incorrect evidence” used to declare BMC ineligible.
BMC had applied for five-star rating and a third-party agency for assessing it had sent a team from December 19-27, 2019. The results on May 19, 2020, declared BMC illegible, on the basis of non-compliance for sweeping of public, residential and commercial premises in M west ward. But civic officials pointed out that when they checked the image properties, they found it was modified using Photoshop.
“Site conditions of latitude and longitude tagged on the picture uploaded by the agency are completely different from the present conditions existing on the very same location in M west ward. The difference in physical conditions of the location in M west ward that are clearly visible are the type of paving of the road, foliage of trees, kind of buildings in vicinity …the meta data of the picture reflects that the image was modified on March 29 at 18:00 hours through Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows),” the letter stated, adding that the tampering was unacceptable, and may deter cities from participating in such activities.
Civic officials said it was thus evident the picture uploaded was morphed or tampered with, questioning the credibility of the process.
The letter said that as Mumbai passed the desktop assessment, becoming eligible for 5-star rating, the current scoring as per field assessment qualified it for three-star rating.
A 5-star rating has tough criteria, including 100% households and premises in the city must be covered by door-to-door collection and transport of solid waste, 100% public and commercial areas should be swept once a day and once at night, residential areas must be swept daily, and waste bins must be at strategic locations.
