Mangaluru: The Mangaluru City Corporation is gearing up to make it to the top among the 500 cities and towns that will be surveyed in the ‘Swachh Sarvekshana 2017’, a cleanliness survey of towns and cities in the country.

Mayor Harinath on Thursday instructed officials of the Mangaluru City Corporation to remove petty shops and eateries occupying footpaths in the city.

At a meeting of councillors and officials to discuss preparations, the Mayor said that many roadside eateries had not maintained hygiene.“They (eateries) wash many plates in same bucket of water," he said.

Earlier, a councillor drew the attention of the Mayor on the encroachment of footpaths by eateries was glaringly visible and wondered how the corporation could make it to the top.

Another councillor asked the corporation not to stop its drive of removing flexes, checking the shops for licence and selling plastic carry bags.

Madhu S. Manohar, Environment Engineer at the corporation, told the meeting that if the corporation is to score marks according to the guidelines is to prevent open defecation and for that it should have 50 public toilets and now the civic body has 21 public toilets. He added that the health section has proposed to build 34 new toilets.He said that the corporation should also resort to segregation of wet and dry waste.