Continuing its image of Chandigarh’s poor cousin, Mohali slipped 32 positions from last year’s 81st rank to settle at the 113th spot among 382 cities in the 1 to 10 lakh category.
After scoring 58.5% marks last year with a 3510 out of 6000 score, the city managed to worsen its performance to 53.8% with 4036 out of 7500 marks.
Even at the state level, Mohali dropped from the second to third position since last year, with Ferozepur and Abohar clinching the top spots.
In terms of service level progress component, which has the highest weightage (40%), Mohali fared the worst in the tricity with 1762 out of 3000 marks, thanks to the civic body’s year-after-year failure to implement garbage segregation at source.
The corporation’s ambitious solid-waste management project at Samgoli village has also remained a non-starter, causing the garbage landfill to only grow taller every year.
On the certifications front, Mohali scored a zero for “garbage free city” amid no manual cleaning of roads for months and shortage of sanitation staff.
“We tried our level best to improve the rank, but the local bodies department failed to allow us to float tenders for mechanical sweeping, majorly affecting the city’s rankings. There is no proper infrastructure and employees are also overloaded amid staff shortage,” said mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu.
On the other hand, local AAP MLA Kulwant Singh demanded the mayor’s resignation for “completely failing to perform his duties”: “The city has gone to dogs. Over a year after MC elections, the mayor has still not been able to sort out the garbage processing plant issue.”
MC commissioner Navjot Kaur said they will analyse the scores and work on improving on various parameters for a better ranking next year.
