Surat in Gujarat and Indore in Madhya Pradesh were on Thursday jointly declared cleanest cities of the country at the annual clean city awards 2023 of the Union Urban Affairs Ministry. Navi Mumbai bagged the third spot.
The Swachh Survekshan awards were given away by President Droupadi Murmu here.
Indore has been adjudged the cleanest city for the seventh time in a row.
The list of top 10 cleanest cities with a population of more than one lakh also includes Greater Visakhapatnam, Bhopal, Vijayawada, New Delhi, Tirupati, Greater Hyderabad and Pune.
Maharashtra tops State list
As far as the States were concerned, Maharashtra came first, followed by Madhya Pradesh and then Chhattisgarh. Odisha is ranked fourth, followed by Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, Karnataka, Goa, Haryana and Bihar.
In the category of cities with a population of less than one lakh, Sasvad and Lonavala in Maharashtra as well as Patan in Chhattisgarh secured the top three spots, while the Mhow Cantonment Board in Madhya Pradesh was adjudged the cleanest cantonment board.
Varanasi and Prayagraj, both in Uttar Pradesh, won the top two awards amongst the cleanest Ganga towns. Chandigarh walked away with the award for the Best Safaimitra Surakshit Sheher (safest city for sanitation workers). Twenty zonal awards were bestowed upon medium and small cities.
Madhyamgram, Kalyani and Haora – all cities from West Bengal – had the dubious distinction of being placed at the bottom, while the States at the end of the list were Rajasthan, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.
The theme of the cleanliness survey 2023 was “Waste to Wealth”, while for 2024 it is “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle”.
“Only by eliminating manholes through mechanised cleaning and achieving the goal of sanitation through machine-holes, we will be able to establish our true identity as a sensitive society,” Ms. Murmu said in her address. She noted that the circular economy’s methods of recycling and reusing more and more goods were proving helpful for sustainable development. She expressed confidence that such a system will prove to be very useful in the field of waste management also.
Ms. Murmu also launched the ‘Swachh Survekshan’ 2023 dashboard at the function.
‘People’s movement’
Union Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said: “Today every city in India is ODF (open defecation free). This became possible because the Swachh Bharat Mission went from being a government programme to becoming a Jan Andolan (people’s movement).”
Mr. Puri said that in 2014, there was only 15-16% scientific processing of waste, while today the number is almost 76%; in the next two to three years, 100% will be achieved. “By the end of this mission, we would have fully transitioned from manhole to machine hole”.
The Swachh Survekshan, which began with a modest evaluation of 73 major cities in 2016, now covers 4,477 cities. The evaluation this year was done by a team of over 3,000 assessors. A total of 4,477 urban local bodies, 61 cantonment boards, 88 Ganga towns and 18,980 commercial areas participated in the survey. Around 12 crore citizen responses were received.
CM praises staff, residents
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav congratulated the employees and workers of the Indore Municipal Corporation as well as residents on the seventh consecutive award for the city.
