The making of swachh Navi Mumbai

An art installation of a horse, made from scrap material, stands tall at Moraj junction. Earlier this year, Navi Mumbai was named the third cleanest city in Swachh Survekshan 2022, making it the only city in Maharashtra to win this honour

Out of 4,354 urban local bodies across the country, Navi Mumbai (let's call it NuBo) was named the third cleanest city in Swachh Survekshan 2022. It's the only city in the state to receive the honour, and ranks below Indore and Surat. Home to approximately 15 lakh people, how did the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) manage this recognition?

Abhijeet Bangar, who was the commissioner of NMMC for two years, and is now commissioner of Thane Municipal Corporation, says: "When I took office, the city was already clean and officials were working hard to keep the momentum. The only aspect we lacked was beautification."

A chunk of the effort was to segregate and manage waste. Sculptures, most of them made out of waste and recycled material, came up at intersections. Public fountains also use treated wastewater. "We needed support from citizens," he adds, "and their most important contribution was waste segregation and home composting."

Thirty donation boxes are spread across the city of Navi Mumbai. With a line on it saying ‘nako asel te dya, have asel te ghya', the box not only asks one to donate clothes, utensils, shoes, etc. that one doesn't need, but also encourage people to pick any item from the box that they find useful

A staff of 4,400 permanent and contractual workers tackled the crucial management of solid waste. "We canvassed widely," adds Dr Babasaheb Rajale, deputy municipal commissioner, director (solid waste management) and convener for Swachh Maharashtra Abhiyan, "and also told citizens to separate hazardous waste. This helped process garbage coming out of each household." "If citizens just maintain this discipline," declares Bangar, "no one can stop Navi Mumbai from ranking first the next time."

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The next task was to set up donation boxes as nodes for objects that still have a lifespan. A collection of metal boxes, labelled books, clothing, shoes, utensils etc, make up the console. "Many times we feel a shirt or dress no longer looks good on us," says Dr Rajale. "Or a toy or household item is no longer of use. We told citizens to put such things into these boxes [allotted for the purpose] to prolong their usage. We called it Nako asel te dya, have asel te ghya (Give what you don't want, take what you want). Around 30 such boxes are spread across the city."

The biggest hit was the Greensole initiative. Collection boxes in large and plush residential complexes were kept for still-usable shoes and chappals. Local cobblers were enlisted to repair them and redo the soles, and distributed amongst those in need. School children were requested to collect wrappers of chips and chocolates, and deposit them in a plastic bottle so that they don't clog sewage lines. NMMC collected these every month and sent them to an NGO in Pune for recycling. They added up to 800 such bottles.

Former commissioner of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation Abhijeet Bangar receiving the award for clean city from President Droupadi Murmu on October 2, 2022

Another ace up NMMC's sleeve was the seven state-of-art sewage treatment centres. Out of these, two tertiary treatment plants at Koparkhairane and Airoli have already started distributing recycled water to TTC industrial sector, thereby reducing water wastage, while also bringing in money.

When it comes to innovative ideas, NMMC also organised a Swachh Kavi Sammelan where poets wrote couplets related to cleanliness and hygiene. The summit saw them expressing the desire of having walls in the city painted with lines of great poets from Marathi literature. Reacting to this, then NMMC commissioner Bangar invited senior calligraphy artist Achyut Palav and drew in students of JJ School of Arts and Thane School of Arts. Soon, 35 walls in the city were inscribed with verses from classic Marathi poems. The students of various art colleges were also roped in to create colourful walls and eye-catching sculptures at important intersections.

The NMMC has around 40 big slum pockets. In its bid to find a solution, a pilot project was launched with Hanuman Nagar, Indira Nagar (Turbhe), Adavali-Bhutavli and Samta Nagar (Airoli) and Bindu Madhav Nagar (Digha) being chosen for the Zero Waste Slum model. Here, women rag pickers were asked to collect daily garbage from these slums, and segregate wet garbage and add it to the compost pits. This reduced the amount of garbage in the slums, the number of trips of garbage vans and provided fixed income to the women hailing from the lowest rank of society. The concept is now being implemented in other slum pockets as well.

The public fountains in the city use treated wastewater

It was imperative that everyone come together to keep NuBo clean. To encourage corporation officials, Swachh Manthan, a competition between eight wards was organised, where each ward was judged on 21 criteria, such as cleanliness, the situation of public toilets, maintenance of footpaths, etc. The NMMC also included its transgender community. "The transgender community is so neglected that we don't even think they can also participate in such drives," says Richa Sameet, founder of NGO Let's Celebrate Fitness. "Street plays featuring 30 to 40 transgenders were designed to inform the people about the swachh survey. It was performed in every housing society as well as public places like traffic signals and railway stations."

The mangroves of the city located along the Thane creek too needed attention. The dumping of garbage and debris also posed an environmental hazard. "The city's cleanliness depends upon how its water bodies are being kept. The condition was terrible when it came to mangroves," says Dharmesh Barai, founder of Mangroves Soldier, adding that it started to change after a group of friends started a cleaning drive on Sundays. "As the word spread, more people started joining the movement. It has been 122 weeks so far and NMMC has stood with us," he adds.

Hailing the achievement, NMMC Commissioner Rajesh Narvekar said, "The cleanliness and beautification efforts by NMMC are now visible. The consistent efforts of all the stakeholders, be it sweeper on the road or officer planning projects, have given rise to more expectations. We are aiming to become the country's cleanest city for the year 2023. We will expedite and expand works related to cleanliness and will make sure we top the ranking."

A dose of history

Considered Mumbai's twin, Navi Mumbai lies between Thane creek and the Sahyadri range on the state's west coast, in the Konkan division. It was conceived in the 1970s, in response to the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning (MRTP) Act 1966, to decongest the city. As it expanded, a need for a local body to look after the city, transportation, public health, and education arose. Thus, on January 1, 1992, NMMC came into existence. Of Navi Mumbai's total area of 343.70 sqkm, 109.59 sqkm is under NMMC jurisdiction.