By Gautam Kumar

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) today declared the results of Swachh Survekshan 2020. Hardeep Puri, Minister, MoHUA declared the results of the fifth edition at a virtual event, Swachh Mahotsav. The Survekshan was carried out in 4,242 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) from 4^th to 31^st January 2020.

In the overall rankings, Indore (Madhya Pradesh) for the fourth time in a row declared as the cleanest city of India. While Surat (Gujrat) and Navi Mumbai (Maharashtra) bagged second and third positions respectively.

In Megacity category (above 40 lakh population), Big city category (10-40 lakh population), Medium City category (3-10 lakh population) and Small city category (1-3 lakh population), Ahmedabad (Gujrat), Vijayawada (Andhra Pradesh), Mysore (Karnataka) and Ambikapur (Chhattisgarh) bagged the cleanest city awards respectively. Karad (Maharashtra) was declared as the cleanest city in the below 1 lakh population category.

Among State awardees, Chhattisgarh became the cleanest state of India followed by Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Gujarat.

Varanasi bagged the best Ganga town award. An assessment of 97 Ganga Towns was undertaken to measure the cleanliness in and around Ghats.

Other major findings of the Survey

• 2,606 Urban Local Bodies practice door to door garbage collection in more than 50% of their wards.
• 1,476 Urban Local Bodies have initiated source segregation of waste in at least 50% of the wards.
• 1,010 Urban Local Bodies have identified and integrated more than 80% informal waste pickers within their cities into sustainable livelihoods.
• 438 Urban Local Bodies process at least 80% of their collected wet waste.
• 377 Urban Local Bodies process at least 80% of their collected dry waste.
• 690 Urban Local Bodies open defecation have ensured that at least 80% of their Bulk Waste Generators (BWGs) are practicing on-site processing of wet waste.
• 1,280 Urban Local Bodies have taken initiatives to encourage the adoption of 3R principles (Reduce, Reuse & Recycle).
• 1,581 Urban Local Bodies are declared Open Defecation Free.
• 5,56,649 sanitation workers linked with social welfare schemes.
• 83,626 informal waste pickers integrated into mainstream.

Swachh Survekshan and Indian Himalayan Region

Uttarakhand emerged as the cleanest state in the Himalayan region followed by Himachal and Sikkim. Uttarakhand was also awarded as the 3^rd Best Performing State in less than 100 ULBs category. Nandprayag was awarded first place for Best City in the Maximum Citizens Participation (Population <1 Lakh) category.

None of the Urban Local Bodies from this region found any place in 100 clean ULBs both in more than 1 lakh population category and less than 1 lakh population category. Lansdowne Cantt (Uttarakhand) bagged the fourth position in clean Cantonment Boards Ranking. 17 Cantonment towns from the Indian Himalayan region find a place in the clean Cantonment Boards Ranking out of the total 62 Cantonment towns.

Out of the top ten cleanest Ganga towns, five were from Uttarakhand. Gauchar, Joshimath, Rudraprayag, Chamoli-Gopeshwar and Srinagar were ranked 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^th and 8^th respectively.

Following were adjudged as cleanest ULBs from the Northeastern region:

Read the full Swachh Survekshan 2020 report here.

Gautam is a law student at UPES, Dehradun and a contributor at TA. He tweets at @gautamkr_12.

The Article was first published by SDC Foundation.