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Q.1-10. 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
ANSWERS
Q.1. (2)
Q.2. (2)
Q.3. (1)
Q.4. (4)
Q.5. (3)
Q.6. (2)
Q.7. (2)
Q.8. (5)
Q.9. (3)
Q.10. (2)
