Swachh Survekshan 2023 Key Highlights: Indore And Surat Adjudged India’s Cleanest Cities; MCD Ranks 90th

New Delhi: Surat, for the first time, joined Indore in the league of India’s Cleanest City. Indore, for the seventh time in a row, took away the title of cleanest city in the Central government’s annual cleanliness survey – Swachh Survekshan. The President of India, Droupadi Murmu conferred the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2023 at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi hosted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) on Thursday (January 11). Navi Mumbai retained the third position. 110 awards were bestowed during the ceremony. 13 awardees received felicitations under categories of Clean Cities, Cleanest Cantonment, SafaiMitra Suraksha, Ganga Towns and Best Performing State were given away.

Also Read: Swachh Survekshan Awards 2023: Indore And Surat Are India’s ‘Cleanest Cities’

Three cities of West Bengal — Madhyamgram (444th rank), Kalyani (445th rank) and Haora (446th rank) — occupied the bottom rankings.

In the category of cities with a population of less than 1 lakh, Sasvad, Patan and Lonavala secured the top three spots. Whereas, Nagaland’s Pungro city ranked the last in this category.

In the category of cleanest cantonment boards, Madhya Pradesh’s Mhow topped the chart while Deolali in Nashik and Ahmedabad were on the other two spots.

The tri-city Chandigarh took away the Best Safaimitra Surakshit Sheher title.

Varanasi and Prayagraj won the top two awards among the Cleanest Ganga Towns. Among the 88 Ganga towns, Chhapra ranked the last.

In the ‘best-performing states’ category, Maharashtra was named the cleanest state in the country, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In the last annual survey, Madhya Pradesh bagged the cleanest state title.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo congratulated the people of the state after it secured the third position in Swachh Sarvekshan 2023 in the “Cleanest State” category.

Among the bottom three in the state category includes Rajasthan, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.

Also Read: Swachh Survekshan: Madhya Pradesh CM Hails Indore Citizens For City’s Seventh Consecutive Win

According to the data, 4,477 urban local bodies participated in the Swachh Survekshan 2023 and 12 core citizen responses were received. 92,720 municipal wards, 61 cantonment boards, 88 Ganga towns and 18,980 commercial areas participated in the survey. The government claims it to be the world’s largest cleanliness survey.

Praising the States and urban local bodies (ULBs) for their performance in Swachh Survekshan, the President of India said,

The theme for the year 2023 “Waste to Wealth” is an important topic to ponder upon. I would like to say that wealth should be created out of waste as that will help the overall cleanliness. Cleanliness has to be made divine process. The G20 Leaders’ Delhi Declaration has committed to enhance environmentally sound waste management and substantially reduce waste generation by 2030 and highlight the importance of zero waste initiatives.

Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram, Faridabad Top In Uttar Pradesh And Haryana

The Swachh Surverkshan results also released information on urban local bodies (ULBs) on parameters like door-to-door waste collection, segregation at source and processing in percentage terms. It also released a star rating for garbage-free cities and open defecation-free (ODF).

Noida scored 99.46 per cent in door-to-door (D2D), 74.39 per cent in ‘source segregation’ and 90.65 per cent in ‘processing’. The city also scored 5-star in the GFC status and Water+ in ODF status, the result showed.

Noida is the only city in Uttar Pradesh to get a 5-star garbage-free city status and the only one with Water+ in ODF status.

Also Read: Indore Bags Swachh Vayu Sarvekshan 2023 Award For Cleanest Air

Meanwhile, Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation scored 99.5 per cent in D2D, 98.37 per cent in source segregation and 70 per cent in processing, while it bagged a 3-star GFC status and ODF++, according to the survey.

Gurugram scored 85.13 per cent in D2D, 14.88 per cent in source segregation and 93.31 per cent in processing, and ODF++, the result showed.

Faridabad scored 82.63 per cent in D2D, 19.63 per cent in source segregation, 31.68 per cent in processing, and just ‘ODF’, it showed.

Both Gurugram and Faridabad were marked with ‘No Star’ in GFC status, according to the results.

Municipal Corporation Of Delhi Ranks 90th; Mayor Office Says Better Ranking Going By Old Metric

For the first time, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) took part in the central government’s annual cleanliness survey after the three civic bodies that existed earlier were unified again into a single entity in 2022. The MCD has been ranked 90th among 446 urban local bodies having a population of more than one lakh.

Delhi Mayor Shelly Oberoi’s Office, however, said MCD’s actual ranking is “28th”, the position the survey shows for it, among urban local bodies having a population of more than one lakh.

A statement from the mayor’s office read,

The cleanliness system of Delhi has become better than before. This has been confirmed by the report of ‘Swachh Survekshan 2023’. However, it still needs improvement.

At the same time, the cleanliness ranking of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has been “better than many big cities”. The MCD has “performed better than cities like Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore in terms of cleanliness,” it claimed, referring to the ranking about the ‘million plus cities’ category.

Also Read: Swachh Survekshan: MCD Ranks 90th; Delhi Cantt 7th In Cleanest Cantonment Boards Category

Mumbai’s Rank Slips To 37; BMC Promises Better Show Next Time

Mumbai’s ranking slipped to 37 from 31 in the cleanliness survey for 2023, leading the local civic body to promise the city will do better next year on the back of a slew of efforts, including the recently launched ‘deep cleaning drive’.

Dr Sudhakar Shinde, Additional Municipal Commissioner, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said,

We have undertaken extensive efforts (to improve cleanliness) and hence next year we will have much better performance.

Mumbai’s detailed report card showed it received 4446.19 marks out of 7,500 and ranked 189 nationally out of 446 cities (across different population categories).

Since last month, the BMC has started a deep cleaning drive, a brainchild of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, under which debris and garbage are collected every weekend in specific areas. CM Shinde is taking a personal interest in the drive and makes it a point to monitor its progress every week.

Also Read: Swachh Bharat Mission: 95,767 Villages In Uttar Pradesh Attain Open Defecation-Free Plus Status

NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which in its Season 10 is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Ayushmann Khurrana. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – the LGBTQ population, indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In a world post COVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fight malnutrition, mental well-being, self-care, science and health, adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and sanitation workers and menstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India where toilets are used and open defecation free (ODF) status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.