Rampur: India’s filthiest city notorious for Power theft also

With about 3.25 lakh residents throwing 165 tonnes of garbage daily, and no waste management in place, Rampur in Uttar Pradesh has emerged as the worst city to live in India. Rampur is parked on the last spot of among 111 cities in Ease of Living Index 2018, released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (Mo-HUA) on Monday.

TPS Verma, the Chief sanitation officer and food inspector, said that Rampur’s poor sanitation conditions are a result of severe staff shortage.

“According to a government order of 1991, here should be 28 sweepers for a population of 10,000. However, we have only 199 sweepers against the 355 permanent posts, and 170 against the 534 contractual posts. We have had to outsource the cleaning in 21 of 43 wards,” Verma told The Times of India.

The local hospital is not capable of handling any emergencies again due to shortage of staff. There are only 13 doctors against 27 sanctioned posts. The Chief medical superintendent, Dr B M Nagar said, that they often refer patients to medical colleges in Meerut and Aligarh, as the hospital does not have specialists like cardiologist, neurologist, ENT and so on at most of the times. Also, there is no MRI machine in any local or private hospital in the city.The education system is also not well organised. There is shortage of textbooks and classrooms for students. The head teacher at the Kasturba residential school in Loha, told the TOI that if students clean the classrooms if sweepers are absent.

Transportation and electricity is highly mismanaged too, there are no city buses and the power supply is erratic. The electricity department is laying underground lines to control power theft, as unpaid electricity bills add up to Rs 35 crore.[Moneycontrol News]