Indore has bagged the title ‘India’s cleanest city’ for the fourth time in a row whereas Kolkata and Howrah slipped to the bottom among the list of cities with a population of more than 10 lakh in the quarterly Swachhta survey.
In the same category, Bhopal ranked second in first quarter results (April- June) of Swachh Survekshan League 2020, whereas Rajkot was ranked second spot in second quarter (July-September) in the report released by Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
The government with the Swachh Survekshan League aims to ensure that the municipal authorities keep taking initiatives for improvising sanitation throughout the year rather than only working during a certain time period in an effort to improve their ranking in the Centre’s annual survey.
The Swachh Survekshan league recorded participation from a total of 4,372 cities which also included municipal areas with a population in the range of less than 25,000 and over 10 lakh.
It was interesting to note that even in the overall ranking of all cities and towns, Indore emerged as the cleanest during both rounds of the survey. While Sursand (Sitamarhi) and Harnaut (Nalanda) in Bihar came last in the first quarter, Kurdemukh in Karnataka and Bedangpet in Telangana finished last in the list.
Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri shared that as more and more cities and towns participate in the Swachhta rankings, it is clear that people have started accepted the rankings and every urban area is trying hard to make it to the list of cleanest cities and towns.
Adding to it, Urban Affairs Secretary Durga Shankar Mishra said, “A major thrust of Swachh Survekshan has been on citizen engagement, be it through citizen feedback or indicators involving citizen participation. This year, the citizen-centric focus has been enhanced substantially through verification of the progress made by cities on Swachhata through direct responses from citizens.”
He shared he was confident that all urban areas in West Bengal will be declared open defecation free (ODF) before the New Year and the state administration has come on board to participate in the next round of Swachhta survey. While highlighting the importance of citizen participation, he said that the survey will be conducted from January 4, 2020.
