Much to learn from Surat’s post-plague story

And now Pune can take a cue from Surat’s success story. Even though the H1N1 virus did not spread in the city because of rats or water logging in the case of Surat,the fact remains that there is a dire need to clean up the city.

Pune Municipal Commissioner Mahesh Zagade admits that cleaning up the city has to be done on priority. “We have plans for decreasing the carbon footrprint in the city by reducing emission and pollution levels. Efforts are on for processing of cent per cent of solid waste management. There is a definite plan to clean up the streets through a strong conservancy staff. There will be a dedicated administrative set up for all 144 wards. All we need to do now is streamline the efforts and the change will be perceptible. Surat had a different set of problems. We have to look at things from our perspective,” said Zadage.

Talking about Surat,Dr Hemant Desai,medical officer,said the measures started at that time of making ward officers go to the field and check the trouble spots in the morning and only then come to office have continued to date. “Even now over 350 people go to the field at 7 am and return only by mid-day. At that time we divided the entire city into administrative zones and each zone functioned like a mini civic body looked after by a deputy commissioner and a health engineer. We formulated a solid waste management plan,introduced spot fining ranging from Rs 50 to 5000 for littering.”

What has also been a big success is their road sweeping programme,whereby the administration appointed one karamchari for every 300-700 metres of road and made that his jilla or beat. Each of them was responsible for ensuring that no bin overflowed with garbage within those 700 metres. Thirty such ‘karamcharis’ came under one supervisor. “In busy areas like markets,bus stands and about 200 main roads,we have introduced night scrapping and brushing,” said Desai.

The results of the efforts are visible in the statistics. According to officials,malaria deaths came down from 22,000 in 1994 to 496 in 1997 and 0 in 2002.