‘Gazab Ghaziabad’ will be clean, green, & inclusive

Rapid urbanisation is bringing more people to cities than what they were previously designed to handle. The responsibility falls on the urban local body to provide a safe and inclusive space that also harbours growth for every citizen. The Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC) has been making news for its major strides towards sustainable development of the city. From clearing out black spots of the city, improving collection and management of electronic waste, to working steadfastly to tackle air pollution, the city corporation is on its way to become a leading example of how a city can be transformed. Abhishek Pandey, Editor, Urban Update, interviews Mahendra Singh Tanwar, Commissioner, Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation, to understand the strategies of the city corporation and what is being planned and worked upon to make it more smart, habitable, and inclusive.

You have said on public forums and in media that you want to transform the city from ‘Zila Ghaziabad’ to ‘GAZAB Ghaziabad’. What does this mean?
When we say ‘Zila Ghaziabad’, the connotation does not leave a very positive impression of the city; and, since branding is very important in this fast paced world, we decided to make a different kind of connotation, a punch line, where people can connect, and therefore decided on ‘GAZAB’. Moreover, at the time of our decision, we also decided to reflect our corporation’s strive to improve sports infrastructure in the city and therefore introduced the full form of ‘GAZAB’ as ‘Ghaziabad, Active Zila, Active Bharat’.

We are witnessing A lot of changes in the NCR region. If we look at India’s urban story, where there are various kinds of initiatives, visions, and missions. How do you see ‘GAZAB Ghaziabad’ taking all these missions along in the pursuit of building a city of its own capacity and its own unique image? What are the exclusive features of Ghaziabad that you are focusing on?
Every city has its own set of unique problems, challenges, and potentials. Geostrategic location of the city of Ghaziabad is very interesting. It is a gateway to Uttar Pradesh (UP), and the first municipal corporation on the way from Delhi to UP. The location provides the city with huge potential for growth and development in terms of infrastructure and importance. In terms of what is the demand, Ghaziabad is known for its industries and as a residential space for people working in the National Capital Region because cost of living is comparatively less here. The city is striving to supply what is required for its growth such as basic infrastructure and basic amenities for people residing and working in the city. Therefore, the corporation has a huge responsibility of providing facilities in all the spheres of life like roads, electricity, water, cleanliness, etc., in a sustainable manner.
Talking about cleanliness under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), where the Government of India started a regular competition among cities, how is Ghaziabad making efforts, taking initiatives to improve its ranking in the Swachh Survekshan? And how will the city address the number of challenges that come with the opportunities due to its location?
At one point in time, Ghaziabad used to be one of the dirtiest cities in the nation owing to its rapidly increasing population and industries. However, the city has been improving in terms of cleanliness over the years since the introduction of SBM. Currently, the city is performing pretty well in that Mission, considering that the city ranked 1st in SBM among cities in UP in 2018. Even though our ranking went down a bit last year, we are very hopeful and working hard to achieve a better rank in the Swachh Survekshan this year.
As far as challenges are concerned, population pressure is definitely the biggest challenge. But this challenge can be dealt with by proper availability of data, and basic amenities and infrastructure, and we are very well prepared to deal with those challenges.

With rapid urbanization and rural-urban migration, the problem of pollution and other climate change related issues is something that cannot be avoided by Ghaziabad. What are the major challenges that you see evolving in relation to climate change issues? What is your strategy to address them and what do you think could be the possible solutions?
Observing the pie chart of pollution, one can note that it is an inter-departmental issue. A single pie chart of air pollution can be divided into various parts, like vehicular pollution, dust, burning of garbage, industrial pollution, etc. It is a complex subject requiring engagement of multiple departments. We are focusing on all the problem areas which are the responsibility of the corporation. For example, we have started marking areas which report huge amount of garbage burning. We have also introduced an efficient system of garbage collection and transportation. Moreover, we are introducing proper garbage processing plants/places in the city to ensure that each kind of waste reaches its appropriate destination instead of getting incinerated or landfilled, thereby adding to the pollution. The city has come up with a unique and first-of-its-kind concept of ‘Garbage Factory’. It is based on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), and income based model, which implies that no money is spent on processing the waste and instead money is generated due to processing of all the waste.
With regard to vehicular pollution, we have gradually completely shift from diesel vehicles to CNG based vehicles and e-vehicles. Very soon, in fact, Ghaziabad will become the first city in India to have e-vehicle based door-to-door collection of all kinds of waste.
We are also using funds from the 15th Finance Commission to decrease the quantum of dust in the city. We are planning to lay down perforated tiles on kacchi patri across the city to reduce the generation of dust. Moreover, with the help of certain machines, we are collecting dust particles suspended in the air in excess amount and reusing it in construction of tiles in our construction and demolition waste plants. As a corporation, we are playing our part, but it is also essential for other departments, like the UP State Pollution Control Board and the Department of Transport, to chip in for getting desired results.

You rightly said that urban governance is a complex issue as the involvement of multiple stakeholders and institutions raises many challenges. Public participation is an important area which needs attention. In your city, how are citizens enabled to connect with the corporation? And, how does the corporation reach out to its citizens for taking their suggestions on issues of their interest?
We started ‘Jan Chaupals’ from October 2020. This mechanism was introduced to boost conversation between the corporation and the citizens of the city. The Jan Chaupals are held at various parks across the city between 08:00-10:00 on Sunday mornings. With these meets, the corporation came to know about various problems or issues that citizens face. We have been analyzing their issues and what is the basket of their problems that enables us to plan how we can address all of them. The corporation interacts with people on social media, the official portal, mobile applications, etc.
Citizens can connect with the Nagar Nigam (municipal corporation) and contribute to the city’s development in various ways. If citizens pay their taxes on time, the corporation will be able to use the funds thus generated for the general development of the city. We are also promoting the ‘Ganda na karna bhi saaf karna hai (Not littering is also a way of cleaning up)’ slogan to prompt people to avoid littering in the city. I personally believe that 5000 people cannot clean the waste dumped by 25 lakh people. Everyone needs to play their role for making and keeping a city clean and prosperous.

Municipal corporations in India often face financial constraints if they wish to start a project on their own. How do you see a city like Ghaziabad developing a financially sustainable model for undertaking its own projects?
Be it a house or a corporation, if your financial health is good, you will play wonderful roles. In Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation, I have observed three things. Firstly, we need to focus on tax base and tax rate. There are around a total of five lakh households in the city. Out of these, only around 3.5 lakh households pay taxes. To solve this issue, we have implemented property tax management system, where Geographic Information System (GIS) based mapping is being used, and we are giving unique identification number to each property – be it residential, commercial or mixed property. Through this, we are focusing on improving the tax base. At the same time, the tax rate is also lesser in Ghaziabad as compared to neighboring municipal corporations. So we have to increase our tax rate as well. Once tax base and tax rate are rationalized, our revenue will increase manifold. Apart from this, we will have to find more avenues of income such as parking, advertising, nigam plazas, etc.
Secondly, we have to cut our expenditures and develop a good fiscal policy. But this does not mean that we will earn less and spend less because that is not a sign of prosperity and financial stability. It means that we will not spend more than our revenue. Since we do not have any loans or liabilities, our strategy is to earn more and spend more for overall development of
the city.
Thirdly, apart from local resources, we expect some funds from the state and central governments through the 15th Finance Commission, or under various government schemes like the Smart Cities Mission.

Recently, Ghaziabad became the first city to list ‘Green Bonds’ on the Bombay Stock Exchange. How is it going to benefit the city? What are your plans for the 150 crore raised from the bonds?
In view of finding more avenues of income, we focused on public funding. We listed ourselves on the Bombay Stock Exchange and raised over `150 crore. When we open ourselves to the market, there is an increase in financial discipline. The bonds were named as ‘Green Municipal Bonds’ because we were utilising these funds to convert a sewage treatment plant into a tertiary treatment plant. Around 40 million litres per day of water from this plant will be taken through piped networks and supplied to around 1700 odd industries in the Sahibabad Industrial Area within the next two years. The present scenario around these industries is that the ground water level is continuously depleting, and the Central Pollution Control Board and other environmental agencies discourage usage of ground water. So these industries will most likely shut down in the near future or shift their businesses to other areas. Therefore, we decided to supply industrial water to the industries to ensure their survival.

We are moving towards post pandemic setting and many cities in the world are talking about various international agendas like green rebuilding or 2030 Agenda. Building urban resilience for pandemics and disasters is extremely crucial. People had to leave their informal settlements because they did not have access to basic needs like food and water. This was at a time when governments and authorities kept asking people to wash hands regularly with water. Many of them had no access. Therefore, the pandemic became unfair to them in many ways. How do you plan to address the needs of urban informals if and when the pandemic strikes again?
On the basis of our experience in Ghaziabad, I will say two things. We not only ensured access to basic daily and civic amenities to informal settlements in our area, but also worked on crisis management. We were focusing on providing basic amenities like general cleanliness, drinking water, sewage management and many more. Apart from this, our crisis management efforts comprised of arranging for medical oxygen cylinders. For this, we started an initiative in Ghaziabad, where we were collecting empty cylinders from the people, getting them filled with oxygen and supplying these to requisite sites. These cylinders were then given back to the needy. Apart from this, we ensured regular sanitization and cleaning of public spaces. As far as resiliency is concerned, I think that it is a continuous process.

We listed ourselves on the Bombay Stock Exchange and raised over Rs 150 crore. When we open ourselves to the market, there is an increase in financial discipline. The bonds were named as ‘Green Municipal Bonds’ because we were utilising these funds to convert a sewage treatment plant into a tertiary treatment plant

There is growing importance of public spaces in many cities of Europe like Barcelona, and Paris. In these cities, public spaces are abundant but in India, they are scanty. In your view, what is the importance of public spaces? How would you like to build them for local citizens?
As you said, these open spaces are very important. To make these spaces available, we have focused on three-four areas. First of all, there is a huge chunk of government land which is either encroached or misutilised. So we have identified a few of such lands belonging to our corporation and are currently in process of removing encroachments from those lands so that they can be converted to public spaces. In the past year, we have cleared around 50 hectares of land in Ghaziabad, the total market value of which is `100 crores. The next phase is to develop these lands into parks, playgrounds and other types of open spaces for the people. Ghaziabad already has around 1250 parks, which makes it one of the greenest cities in the country. Ghaziabad’s per capita green cover is also very good. However, there is much pollution in the city which we have yet to work on.
There are sufficient parks but not many playgrounds in the city. We also need to focus on this aspect, and not only in Ghaziabad, but in other Indian cities as well. We are planning to develop around 100 playgrounds for the children of the city.
There are around 50 water bodies in Ghaziabad which were also encroached or badly maintained. We started developing these water bodies and 46 water bodies surrounded by green spaces have already been built. We are regularly ensuring that clean water is available in these water bodies and also planning some recreational activities like boating.

My last question is that if you want to prioritise three targets or priority areas for the city, what will those be? What is your roadmap for achieving them?
The foremost priority is cleanliness. We are focusing on effective collection, transportation, and processing of garbage. We are striving to develop an ecosystem where we can process our daily waste so that we can make our city a dumpyard-free city. This is our first priority and we are very close to achieving this vision.
Second priority is to provide every household of the city with clean water, and within the next two to three years, we will be able to successfully provide 24×7 good-quality tap water supply. Along with this, an equal focus would be given on sewage management and treatment.
Third priority is improving the general life of our residents by providing more open spaces, playgrounds, green, safe and clean parks, good market areas like clean nigam plazas, dedicated markets for various businesses, and proper street lights in the city so that people of the city can travel anytime and feel safe and secure.
Apart from this, we wish to rationalize the taxation system in the city, wherein services should be easily accessible to the people. We are also focusing on enterprise resource planning to successfully map our assets both below and above the surface. This is how we need to manage our assets successfully and provide better services to the people of the city.

We listed ourselves on the Bombay Stock Exchange and raised over Rs 150 crore. When we open ourselves to the market, there is an increase in financial discipline. The bonds were named as ‘Green Municipal Bonds’ because we were utilising these funds to convert a sewage treatment plant into a tertiary treatment plant