Mysuru 3rd Cleanest City… Really ?

Last Saturday, I wrote about heart attacks. The very next morning, my father, K.B. Ganapathy, passed away due to a massive heart attack. He was 85. It was the kind of ending he wished for — a long, healthy life and a sudden death.

He lived a fulfilled life brimming with adventures and enough stories to fill a book-shelf.

Although I don’t feel much like writing this week, I must honour his words. He often said, “A newspaper writer or columnist must never miss a deadline.”

So while many expect me to write about my father, the Founder-Editor of Star of Mysore and Mysuru Mithra, I will do so next week, when the grief is a little less raw.

For now, I’ll write about something far less emotional but equally close to our civic hearts: Mysuru being ranked the Third Cleanest City in India under Super Swachh League — 3 lakh to 10 lakh population category.

But… are we really?

I’ve always been a skeptic when it comes to these ‘Cleanest City’ rankings. At our newspaper office alone, we have enough photo evidence to suggest otherwise. In my opinion, and I believe many Mysureans will agree, Mysuru isn’t the cleanest city. It’s just the least dirty one.

Let me take you back to 2015. I was on a bus to Bengaluru, and my co-passenger happened to be from Mandya. That morning, the papers were full of praise as Mysuru had bagged the top spot as the Cleanest City in India.

Bursting with civic pride, I shared the news with my Mandya companion and, in a generous attempt at sportsmanship, consoled him by pointing out that Mandya had been placed sixth. He was unimpressed.

“Henge, sir?” (How, sir?) he asked, puzzled.

At that moment, two things hit me: First that he was thinking like a journalist, asking questions, unlike me, who had turned into a blind cheerleader.

Second was when I was hit by the stench of an open, frothy drain wafting in through the bus window as we passed through Bengaluru, which, incidentally, had just been ranked the Cleanest State Capital !

“How do they decide this, sir?” he asked again. It then struck me that this wasn’t a  merit-based award. It was more a case of “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is the king.”

Because when you enter the so-called cleanest city of Mysuru from Bengaluru, what greets you? Construction debris, flex boards on aqueduct, hoardings flapping like flags of neglect.

If an outsider arrives expecting a model city, they’re welcomed by a tableau of civic indifference.

So again, is Mysuru truly clean or just better than the rest? Let’s break it down.

Back in 2015-16, the Swachh Survekshan had a 100-point evaluation system. Mysuru scored well in two major areas: Open defecation indicators (20 points) and solid waste management (22 points).

In 2017, the scoring system changed; 900 of the 2,000 points were allotted for these same two categories. Once again, we aced them.

But the problem began when citizen feedback (600 points) and independent observation (500 points) were introduced. Suddenly, things like debris dumps, dug-up roads and overflowing bins mattered. And we slipped.

This year? Citizen feedback wasn’t even collected. Street vendors were shooed away just in time for the evaluators to arrive. If only they had visited our newspaper office, we’d have gladly shown them Mysuru’s dirty little secrets, not to shame the city, but to help it improve.

Still, let’s not be entirely cynical. Credit where credit is due: The Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) does a reasonably good job. Visitors often remark that our city is far cleaner than theirs and that’s validation too.

The MCC has taken steps like distributing waste bins to promote household segregation, and they collect over 400 tonnes of garbage daily, converting over 200 tonnes of it into high-quality manure, generating around Rs. 6 lakh per year. That’s commendable.

But, and there’s always a “but”, the MCC has miserably failed and faltered in monitoring debris dumping, flex menace and ensuring timely garbage collection. And that will cost us our clean city crown as the point system changes again.

Then, of course, there’s the matter of garbage politics — quite literally. It’s no secret that local leaders have weaponised waste management to extract favours.

There are documented cases of politicians ordering garbage bins to be relocated next to commercial complexes, only to stop collection until ‘favour payments’ are made.

Some are so vindictive, they’ve dumped garbage near schools because the management didn’t allot ‘enough seats.’

How can a city be the cleanest when its supposed ‘city fathers’ use garbage as a tool of extortion?

Thankfully, a large part of the credit for Mysuru’s relative cleanliness goes to its residents. Mysureans are an engaged bunch. They write letters, confront civic bodies and rally to protect trees, hills and lakes. They’re the reason this city functions as well as it does.

But let’s not romanticise things too much. Mysuru’s real advantage is that it hasn’t grown as rapidly as other Tier-2 cities like Pune or Noida. That’s what makes our city  more manageable.

However, with railway double tracking, air connectivity and expressway, industrialisation and immigration are inevitable and let’s be honest, Mysuru is not ready.

That’s why many of us secretly and some openly, hope Mysuru remains an industrial pariah which leaves it peaceful, slow and pleasantly boring just like many like it.

So for now, let’s be proud but humble… For we as Mysureans know we could do better and truly be the cleanest city. 

e-mail: vikram@starofmysore.com