Equi-City conducts urban awareness campaign on sanitation in Nagpur

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is an important Mission which our future generation and students must know and be aware of. It is a cleanliness campaign run by the Government of India, which was initiated by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. This campaign was launched officially by the Government of India on 145th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2, 2014. The Government of India has aimed to make India a clean India by October 2, 2019 (150th birth anniversary of the Mahatma Gandhi) through this campaign. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) had conducted ‘Swachh Survekshan-2016’ survey for the rating of 73 cities in January 2016 followed by ‘Swachh Survekshan-2017’ conducted in January-February 2017 ranking 434 cities and recently concluded Swachh Survekshan-2018 for ranking 4,203 Cities in order to encourage cities to improve cleanliness and sanitation. MoHUA recently conducted its fourth survey ‘Swachh Survekshan-2019’ to rank all cities under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBMU) to scale up the coverage of the ranking exercise and encourage towns and cities to actively implement mission initiatives in a timely and innovative manner.
The ‘Swachh Survekshan-2019’ survey of all Urban Local Bodies was conducted between January 4 to January 31, 2019. The objective of the survey is to encourage large scale citizen participation, ensure sustainability of initiatives taken towards garbage free and open defecation free cities, provide credible outcomes which would be validated by third-party certification, institutionalise existing systems through online processes and create awareness amongst all sections of society about the importance of working together towards making towns and cities a better place to live in. Additionally, the survey fostered a spirit of healthy competition among towns and cities to improve their service delivery to citizens, towards creating cleaner cities.
In background of the aforementioned facts, Equi-City Team in Nagpur facilitated Urban Awareness Campaign in Nagpur Municipal Corporation Schools targeting students and areas surrounding the schools to sensitise them on sanitation and towards health-seeking behaviour. The details of the Urban Awareness Campaign are
as follow:
The Equi-City Team along with NMC conducted Sanitation Awareness Campaigns and Quiz Competitions in all ten zones of Nagpur in NMC affiliated schools. The team helped to spread awareness in the residential areas and shops around the school regarding the sanitation, environment and cleanliness of the city. The team also carried out rally of students in the city and sensitised around 5000 people about keeping their environment clean.
The Sanitation Awareness Campaigns in the schools were initiated with the welcoming of the Equi-City Team by giving a plantation as a token of welcome. The School Principals addressed the students regarding the importance of cleanliness in their lives and the Swachh Bharat Mission taking place in the country. Team generated awareness amongst the students and teachers about ‘Swachh Survekshan-2019’ which is ongoing in the city and how we can contribute to make Nagpur the cleanest city in this competition. After the brief orientation exercises on Swacchta, a Quiz Competition on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Sanitation was conducted by the Equi-City Team for the students of school in order to spread awareness for cleanliness of the city and Swachh Bharat Mission.
Around 50 students of 5th to 10th class participated in this quiz competition from each school. The winners of the quiz competition from each class were given prizes. Followed by the quiz competition. These campaign helped to sensitise around 5000 people about keeping their environment clean. Teachers and students of the school joined this Sanitation Awareness Campaign very actively with great fervor and joy. Further, Equi-City Team is also planning to launch citywide Awareness Campaigns in Colleges and Educational Institutions as well.
The Equi-City review meeting with Abhijeet Bangar, Commissioner of NMC took place on February 6, 2019. The team in the meeting showed their Presentation on Equi-City projects from the starting in 2016 until end of 2018. Following are the points discussed during the meeting
The meeting started with an introduction about the activities conducted in past 3 years by the Equi-City Project under Dr Amrita Anand, Project Manager, Equi-City Project. A brief detail of project activities was discussed for each year from 2016-2018, describing the focus of the main activities and its outcomes in that particular year.
Functioning of City Development Forum and its utilisation in the improvisation of Governance and Municipal Services was discussed. Also, how it can benefit ineffective Citizen Engagement for decision making process. The Commissioner said that suggestions on procedural reforms from Equi-City Team must be also worked upon to improve administration and governance.
Commissioner putting forward his suggestions on mobile based and web-based application for monitoring of municipal services, said that the interface of the mobile application to be built under Municipal Rating System must be user friendly and should have integration of all the services provided by the NMC (like property tax, birth/death registration) and not just services related to sanitation. He also suggested coordinating with Nashik Municipal Corporation as they have conducted a similar exercise using the mobile application platform in their city.
Further, discussions were on current activities and evaluation of municipal services in Nagpur Survey done by the Equi-City Team for M&E of services. Commissioner Sir discussed to suggest a methodology and reforms to improve the mode of service delivery and focused upon reducing the response mechanism of NMC for grievance Redressal.
The discussion on evaluation of municipal services survey was followed by discussions on monitoring of municipal services, where Dr Amrita requested the Commissioner on forming a written mechanism for evaluation and follow-up, involving the Zone level Official and elected representatives so that the selected indicators can be monitored in those zones.
The Commissioner also suggested to integrate the Swacch Bharat application as well in the Municipal Rating System application and bring in different services provided by the NMC on a single platform.
Overall, the Commissioner suggested that Equi-City Project should provide recommendations on systemic reforms and process re-engineering/modification through which the whole structure should be integrated in the NMC using the already available resources. The Equi-City Team should also suggest how to monitor and coordinate services of NMC so that there is a better response from the Citizens and quick engagement from the NMC.