MoHUA Workshop Charts Shared Roadmap for Clean Delhi

Sanitation workers and the officials who plan their work sat in the same room in the capital. The Department of Capital Development (DoCD) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, working with Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban, held a workshop titled Planning a Shared Roadmap for Clean Delhi, which brought sanitation inspectors, supervisors, urban local body officials and other stakeholders together to work out practical answers for a cleaner and more liveable capital.

Who took part

Ms D. Thara, Secretary of the Department of Capital Development, took part along with senior officials of the NDMC, the MCD, the DDA and the ministry. The organisers said this was the first time that functionaries from the top of the system to the lowest rung came on to a common platform to debate the city's sanitation problems and settle a collective path forward. The workshop opened with a motivational address by BK Hussain of the Brahma Kumaris.

What was discussed

The core of the day was an interactive session built around ten critical questions. Among them:

• Why visible cleanliness in Delhi still lags despite heavy investment and effort
• How the city can move towards being bin-less through more efficient and frequent door-to-door collection of waste
• How to deal with recurring Garbage Vulnerable Points, or GVPs, and stop littering and waste from reaching water bodies
• How to keep public toilets clean, safe and working through the day
• How to improve the system for redressing citizens' complaints

Listening to the front line

The thinking behind the format was that sanitation staff stand at the front of service delivery and can describe the day-to-day obstacles first hand, which lets planners design solutions that work on the ground rather than only on paper. An online digital poll was run among the participants to pick out the main challenges to cleanliness in the city and to gather views from those working at the grassroots. The exercise produced feedback on operational gaps, citizen behaviour, service delivery and the openings for improvement. Best practices were shared as success stories, along with photographs of spots that need focused attention.

The Secretary's message

Addressing the gathering, Ms D. Thara congratulated the sanitary inspectors and supervisors for their work on the city's cleanliness standards. She called the sanitation workforce the most vital part of any municipality, and said that while a doctor gives medicine after a diagnosis, the sanitation team works before the doctor does, preventing disease by keeping the city clean. The invited inspectors and supervisors were felicitated for their contribution to urban sanitation, and the workshop closed with a shared commitment to practical, citizen-centric and results-oriented measures for a cleaner Delhi.