Jammu city took a giant leap in Swachh Survekshan-2018 rankings by jumping 39 ranks up and standing tall at 212th rank at the national level as compared to its previous ranking of 251 in Swachh Survekshan-2017.The Swachh Survekshan survey is conducted by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India to encourage large scale citizen participation and create awareness amongst all sections of society about the importance of working together towards making towns and cities a better place to live in. Additionally, the survey also intends to foster a spirit of healthy competition among towns and cities to improve their service delivery to citizens, towards creating cleaner cities.The 'Swachh Survekshan-2018' covered 4203 cities including 61 Cantonment Boards. The 'Swachh Survekshan - 2018' ranking of the cities, separately done for those with a population of one lakh or more (national ranking) and those below one lakh (state and zonal rankings), was based on assessment of progress from January 2017 till December 2017 (extended till January 2018 for Cantonment Boards only) under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U).Between the period of January 4 and March 10, 2018, a total of over 2700 Swachh Survekshan assessors and MoHUA observers’ team went on ground to visit 4203 ULBs. In Swachh Survekshan-2018, different Urban Local Bodies of the Jammu and Kashmir state participated wherein Jammu city jumped 39 ranks up and stood at 212th rank.
The scoring for each ULB for ranking was segregated into four main components including service level progress by ULB, independent validation done by Swachh Survekshan assessors and MoHUA observers’ team; direct observation by Swachh Survekshan assessors and MoHUA observers’ team and citizen feedback collected through various modes.The Jammu city scored 2025.81 marks out of 4000 which is above the state and national average marks. Jammu city secured 1068 marks in direct observation which is also above state and national average marks and 817.18 marks in citizen feedback which is above the state average marks. Moreover, Jammu city secured overall highest marks among all the Urban Local Bodies of the J&K state.Commissioner, Jammu Municipal Corporation Ramesh Kumar appreciated the ranking of Jammu Municipal Corporation but stated that there is need to put in more efforts to achieve the desired results so that JMC is spotted in top 10 rankings.He stated that it is the result of hard work and focused attention given by the concerned officers/field staff of the JMC because of which the ranking of JMC has been improved by 39 points.He further issued instructions to the concerned wings of JMC for taking steps for improvement of sanitation scenario by putting more men and machinery within the limits of the Corporation so that there can be desired improvement in the ranking during Swachh Survekshan-2019.He also appealed the general public to give their feedback in respect of sanitation/cleanliness of their respective areas which would help JMC in taking necessary steps required for improving sanitation scenario in the city.