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Read
the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it.
Certain words are given in bold to help you locate them while
answering some of the questions.
With even the national capital
not spared, Indian cities are plagued by a plethora of communicable diseases of
late: dengue, bird flu, typhoid, chikungunya and swine flu. This is not a new
trend.
In September 1994, pneumonic
plague was reported in parts of Surat, Gujarat, and hospitals were overcrowded
with patients. Suspected cases totalled 1,061 between September 20 and 25,
leading to mass panic. Around 25 per cent of the population is said to have
fled the city, carrying the disease with them to Delhi, Mumbai, Nashik, and
Kolkata. Surat’s diamond processing localities, a high-risk hotspot, were soon uninhabited. Air India flights landing
in London were termed as “plague planes”. With its open sewers and slums and
soaking garbage due to the monsoons, Surat was described as a “medieval horror
show”.
More recently, in May 2016,
there were reports of bird flu in a poultry farm in Humnabad, Bidar district of
Karnataka. The State’s animal husbandry department swung into action, asking
for the culling of nearly 1.5 lakh birds in the farm. While the outbreak has
now subsided, such incidents remain surprisingly frequent and worrying. Disease
outbreak remains common in India, with debilitating consequences.
Sanitation
was never a major concern for pre-independent India. It has remained that way.
In 1907, when plague led to the death of 1.3 million people, the colonial
government remained focussed on preventing cholera epidemics, ensuring military
sanitation and preventing the outbreak from infecting the bureaucracy. Instead
of funding an expansion of municipality-based sanitation through sewers, the
government chose to intensify manual scavenging. Any collection inefficiencies
were blamed on the poverty-ridden scavengers, a bias that remains ingrained in
our municipal institutions. Post-Independence, India’s cities have grown
haphazardly, mostly in unsanitary conditions, with outbreaks tempered by the
widespread use of antibiotics and insecticides. Mutual collaboration between
the urban middle class and the hinterland has been disincentivised by
institutional apathy and unequal economic progress. During epidemic outbreaks,
the sick and the underprivileged are left with no recourse to satisfactory
health-care systems.
Today, about 90 per cent of
solid waste is directly dumped into landfills. There remains little, if any,
monitoring of heavy metal concentration in municipal solid waste. Consider a
seemingly well-planned city, Chandigarh. It generates an average of 370 tonnes
of solid waste on a daily basis. Just 7-8 per cent of its solid waste
management budget is allocated for garbage collection. Given these figures, its
collection efficiency varies (70 per cent from registered households, only 20
per cent from slums and surrounding villages). For each of its 56 sectors, 10-15
sweepers are assigned, many of whom suffer from parasitic diseases like
diarrhoea, jaundice and trachoma. These workers remain unaware of the health hazards of their occupation, with
limited mechanical equipment to help minimise their direct contact with solid
waste.
We conduct limited, if any,
separation at source despite a high proportion of our household waste being
biodegradable. We should seek to encourage composting, which would help reduce
landfill burden while increasing collection efficiency. This can be further
encouraged by setting up biomethanation plants in all Tier 2 and 3 cities to
process vegetable and mixed waste. Most of our collection of solid waste takes
place in an ad hoc manner. Routes are decided mostly by local sweepers and drivers
and there is inadequate scheduling of collection of waste from different
sectors across urban areas. Waste is mostly dumped in an unsanitary and
uncontrolled manner. It is then covered with soil and buried by machinery.
Cities like Chandigarh and
Surat can show us the way. Chandigarh is increasingly focussing on developing
an integrated municipal solid waste management process by seeking to conduct segregation and storage of waste at
source while promoting recycling, composting, and generation of electricity
from municipal waste.
Surat has now turned into a
public health leader by overhauling its trash collection and street cleaning
processes and enforcing proper hygiene in restaurants. It has overhauled its
slums, offering their residents paved streets and toilets. It regularly
conducts disease surveillance through 489 surveillance workers, testing more
than 2.3 million malaria breeding spots in 2014 while offering active
diagnosis. The municipal corporation has built up a large network of 41 urban
health centres, supplemented by mobile health clinics, over 500 private
hospitals, and 1,300 teaching units. Garbage collection has been given a strict
timetable, with each sweeper allocated a specific area. Dustbins have been
installed and litterers are heavily penalised. The results are clear: cases of
vector-borne diseases are rapidly declining. Surat now retains pride over its
cleanliness. Sri Lanka also offers a remarkable example: it was recently
declared free of malaria.
It’s not hard to build an
effective waste management system. Simple things matter. A study in Bhopal
highlighted that limited collection labour, badly designed community bins in
poorly thought through locations, ill-maintained collection vehicles, and a
general lack of waste treatment and disposal facilities led to poor waste
management. Systematic thinking is still lacking. We retain limited public
participation, even more limiting institutional funding, and a feckless policy
and legal framework. Political will combined with active surveillance and
institutional support can turn our cities around. Changing our cities from
disease-prone filthy conurbations to smarter cities is a challenge that must be
met through vigilance and better execution.
Q.1- Which of the following is
possibly the most appropriate TITLE for the passage?
(1) Free of malaria
(2)
Making cities disease-free
(3) Surveillance
workers in India
(4) Vigilance and
execution
(5) Diseases a major issue
Q.2- Which of the following statement/s is/are TRUE in context to the
passage?
(A) Chandigarh
generates an average of 370 tonnes of solid waste on a daily basis.
(B) We should not seek
to encourage composting, which would help reduce landfill burden while increasing
collection efficiency.
(C) The municipal
corporation has built up a large network of 41 urban health centres,
supplemented by mobile health clinics, over 500 private hospitals, and 1,300
teaching units.
(1) Only B
(2) Only A and C
(3) Only C
(4) Only B and C
(5) All A, B and C
Q.3- Which of the following statement/s is/are NOT TRUE in context to the
passage?
(1) Today, about 90
per cent of solid waste is indirectly dumped into landfills.
(2) Instead of funding
an expansion of municipality-based sanitation through sewers, the government
chose to intensify manual scavenging
(3) Sanitation was
never a major concern for pre-independent India.
(4) In 1907, when
plague led to the death of 1.3 million people, the colonial government remained
focussed on preventing cholera epidemics, ensuring military sanitation and
preventing the outbreak from infecting the bureaucracy.
(5) In May 2016, there
were reports of bird flu in a poultry farm in Humnabad, Bidar district of
Karnataka.
Q.4- Why was Surat described as a “medieval horror show” in
1994?
(1) Surat’s localities were not aware of many
diseases so it was described as a “medieval horror show”.
(2) Surat was a small city and no one wanted to
visit it so it was described as a “medieval horror show”.
(3) People, living in Surat were very lazy so it
was described as a “medieval
horror show”.
(4) Surat’s diamond processing
localities was a high-risk hotspot of many diseases. With its open sewers and
slums and soaking garbage due to the monsoons, Surat was described as a
“medieval horror show”.
(5) Many workers
of Surat remain unaware of the health hazards
of their occupation, with limited mechanical equipment to help minimise their
direct contact with solid waste.
Q.5- How many hospitals and teaching units were built by the municipal
corporation in Surat.
(1) The municipal
corporation has built up over 350 private hospitals, and 130 teaching units.
(2) The municipal
corporation has built up over 500 private hospitals, and 2,300 teaching units.
(3) The municipal
corporation has built up over 500 private hospitals, and 1,300 teaching units.
(4) The municipal
corporation has built up over 250 private hospitals, and 2300 teaching units.
(5) The municipal
corporation has built up over 1300 private hospitals, and 500 teaching units.
Q.6- Air India flights landing in London were termed as
____________
(1) trachoma
planes
(2) plague planes
(3) diarrhoea
planes
(4) jaundice
planes
(5) fever plane
Q.7-8- Choose the word/group of words
is most SIMILAR in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold as
used in the passage.
Q.7- UNINHABITED
(1) Freedom
(2) Unoccupied
(3) Settled
(4) Meander
(5) Vision
Q.8- SANITATION
(1) Honesty
(2) Partiality
(3) Filth
(4) Combination
(5) Cleanliness
Q.9-10- Choose the word/group of words
is most OPPOSITE in meaning to the word/group of words printed in bold
as used in the passage.
Q.9- HAZARDS
(1) Development
(2) Support
(3) Safeguard
(4) Harmful
(5) Issue
Q.10- SEGREGATION
(1) Ambition
(2) Connection
(3) Selection
(4) Partition
(5) Assist
ANSWER- 1. (2) 2. (2) 3. (1) 4. (4) 5.
(3) 6. (2) 7. (2) 8. (5) 9. (3) 10.
(2)
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