The central government on Thursday announced the results of Swacch Survekshan 2020. Madhya Pradesh’s Indore has been ranked the cleanest city for the fourth time in a row. Gujarat’s Surat and Maharashtra’s Navi Mumbai held the second and third positions.
In the category of less than 1 lakh, Maharashtra’s Karad topped the results, followed by Saswad and Lonavala. Chattisgarh got adjudged as the cleanest state of India in the ‘under 100 Urban Local Bodies category. Meanwhile, Jharkhand has ranked the cleanest state in India in the ‘above 100 Urban Local Bodies’ category.
The annual survey on cleanliness comes under the Swacch Bharat Mission by the Central Government. This year, however, the results got delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The survey covered 4,242 cities and saw the participation of 1.87 crore citizens. The completion took 28 days in total.
Union Minister Statement
“When the Swachh Bharat Mission- Urban (SBM-U) was launched in 2014, it was with the objective of making urban India 100% open defecation free (ODF) along with 100% scientific solid waste management. With no concept of ODF in urban areas and solid waste processing standing at a mere 18%, it was clear that an accelerated approach was necessary if the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s dream of a Swachh India was to be achieved within the timeframe of five years,” Union housing minister Hardeep Puri said during a virtual press conference on Thursday.
“A framework was therefore needed to bring about rigor in the progress in monitoring and a spirit of healthy competition among states and cities to improve their performance in key cleanliness parameters. This underlying thought led to the conceptualization and subsequent implementation of the Swachh Survekshan (SS), a competitive framework to encourage cities to improve the status of urban sanitation while encouraging large-scale citizen participation,” he added.
Indore was named the cleanest city in the country in the Swachh Survekshan 2019 (SS 2019) awards. The State has been retaining its spot for the 3 consecutive years.
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