The Union ministry for urban development doesn’t seem to agree with the famous Persian poet’s description of Kashmir as heaven on earth. The ranking of 423 class-I Indian cities on 19 parameters of sanitation, commissioned by the ministry, has ranked Srinagar at a pathetic 420th spot.

But Mehraj Ahmad Kakroo, the deputy commissioner and also the municipal commissioner of Srinagar, told Governance Now that public-private partnership (PPP) was their solution to the problem. “We will be improving sanitation by inviting private partners,” he said.

Kakroo said that sewerage and drainage channels were already under construction in Srinagar. “We want to first privatise 13 wards in Srinagar,” he added.

Vajeeh Ahmad Andradi, the editor-in-chief of Daily Itelaat, an Urdu newspaper in Kashmir, said the main problem was that the government was not serious about sanitation. “The non-seriousness is reflected in the fact that we don’t even have a separate municipal commissioner. The deputy commissioner has to perform that role,” he says.

The people of the area also did not co-operate with the government in matters of sanitation, Andradi said. “People have no civic sense. Everyone throws litter on the road.” 

Srinagar's ranking as the 4th last city in terms of sanitation was nothing surprising, said Mantasha Binti Rashid, a student in Srinagar. “The drainage system of downtown in Srinagar has already been declared as a failed affair,” she says.