Housing complexes and cooperative housing societies in New Town will be ranked on the basis of steps they have taken to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and dengue outbreak, and to reduce pollution and plant trees.

The New Town Kolkata Development Authority, which is organising the contest, has asked residential complexes and cooperative housing societies in all three action areas of the township to submit their entries, along with a presentation, by January 21.

The entries have to be mailed to newtownranking@gmail.com.

“The contest will spur residents to keep the township clean and free of pollution,” an NKDA official said.

NKDA has finalised at least nine parameters based on which the participating housing complexes, cooperative societies and residential blocks will be graded. Among the parameters are steps to contain the spread of Covid-19, dengue awareness and prevention programme, cleanliness, plantation initiatives and segregation of waste at source.

“Cleanliness, reduction of plastic usage and segregation of waste at source carry the highest weightage,” said NKDA chairman Debashis Sen. “The contest will allow us to rank each gated community as well as residential blocks. This is being done to acknowledge and encourage the work undertaken by residents of New Town.”

Every residential block in the township will be graded, too, based on the grades of all housing complexes and cooperative housing societies in it.

The participants will be graded by NKDA officials, who will visit cooperative housing societies and housing complexes. In addition to this, a set of “third-party reviewers” will visit the areas and speak to residents at random.

“This has been done to ensure that the claims made in the presentation are physically verified and checked,” Sen added.

In order to notify the residents of the contest, the NKDA will send out circulars to all blocks as well as gated communities.

Reshmi Chakraborty, who stays in AL block of New Town, said residents of their block were trying to make a thorough presentation of what they do the entire year. “This is a great way to showcase what we have been doing for the welfare of residents throughout the year,” said Chakraborty.