Aurangabad gets ODF certification in Swachh Sarvekshan

Aurangabad, Feb 5:

The city has been awarded open defecation free (ODF ) tag by the union Government in the Swachh Sarvekshan 2021, recently. The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) hopes that the tag will help improve its position in the national rankings of the Cleanliness Survey.

The union Government conducted a third party inspection (TPI) of the city from January 12 to 15. The assessment team visited 53 locations (including slums, residential, commercial and public areas) in the city during midnight and early morning hours. The head of Solid Waste Management (SWM) Cell at AMC, Nandkishore Bhombe underlined that the ODF tag will help to earn star ratings and improve our national ranking in the Cleanliness Survey 2021.

" The AMC had constructed sewage treatment plants (of various capacities) in the city. They are at Padegaon (10 MLD), Zhalta (35 MLD), Dr Salim Ali Lake (5 MLD) and Kanchanwadi (161 MLD). These plants would release a quantity of 60-70 MLD of treated water in the nearby nullahs. The manure (fertiliser) manufactured at the STPs is also distributed free of cost. The successful management of sewage waste under Sewage Upgradation and Development Programme (SUDP) and STPs had helped to get the tag," said Bhombe adding that all four STPs had also been certified as ODF .

The assessment team, in its TPI report, had also mentioned that during their visits to different locations in the city they had not found anyone urinating or defecating in open space. The assessment team also inspected 11 public toilets and listed five of them as ' Aspirational' and six of them as 'Clean.'