New Delhi (TIP)- Indore and Surat were on Thursday, January 11, named the joint winners of the cleanest city award, while Maharashtra bagged the top spot among states in the Union government’s annual cleanliness rankings for urban areas. This was the seventh year in a row that Indore was named the cleanest city in the Swachh Survekshan Awards. Surat, which has been in second place behind Indore for the past three years, won the top award for the first time. Both cities had 100% door-to-door collection of waste, 98% segregation at source and 100% remediation of dumpsites, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs’ Swachh Survekshan 2023 dashboard. Both cities were tied at the top place among cities with a population over 1 lakh.
The rankings take into account door-to-door collection of waste, segregation at source, cleanliness of public areas, clean water bodies and citizens’ feedback regarding the cleanliness of their cities.
Of the eight rounds of annual awards since 2016, this was the first time that two cities shared the top prize. Navi Mumbai was named the third cleanest city.
With 89.24% door-to-door collection and 67.76% source segregation, Maharashtra was awarded the cleanest state. In second place, Madhya Pradesh has 90.59% door-to-door segregation and 54.1% source segregation.
Chandigarh won the award for the city having the best safety standards for sanitation workers – Safaimitra Surakshit Shehar. Varanasi was named the cleanest ‘Ganga town’. Sasvad in Maharashtra was named the cleanest city among those with population below 1 lakh. Mhow Cantonment was named the cleanest cantonment in the country.
On the other hand, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Nagaland and Tripura were ranked the bottom five states.
Starting with 73 cities in 2016, the number of cities covered in the annual ranking has increased over the years. The 2023 round covered 4,416 urban local bodies, 61 cantonments and 88 Ganga towns. According to the ministry, 1.58 crore online citizen feedback and 19.82 lakh face-to-face views were received as a part of the ranking.
Distributing the awards at a ceremony here, President Droupadi Murmu highlighted the importance of creating wealth from waste. She said a large amount of urban land was buried under mountains of garbage, which had a harmful impact on health. She noted that the Swachh Bharat Mission was working to eliminate such legacy dumpsites.
Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said scientific processing of waste had increased from 15-16% in 2014 to almost 76% now. Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Manoj Joshi said cities were working to achieve 100% processing of waste. He said there were still some instances of sanitation workers cleaning sewers manually, leading to accidents and deaths – something which must be “completely eliminated”.
Top 10 big cities (over 10 lakh population)
2023
– Indore (same rank in 2022)
– Surat (same rank in 2022)
– Navi Mumbai (same rank in 2022)
– Visakhapatnam (same rank in 2022)
– Bhopal (rank 6 in 2022)
– Vijayawada (rank 5 in 2022)
– Greater Hyderabad (rank 10 in 2022)
Pune (rank 9 in 2022)
– Raipur (rank 11 in 2022)
– Pimpri Chinchwad (rank 19 in 2022)