Indore was adjudged India’s cleanest city for the sixth time in a row, while Surat and Navi Mumbai followed it on the next two spots in Swachh Survekshan, which also declared Madhya Pradesh as the best performing state.

President Droupadi Murmu felicitated the awardees of the cleanest states and cities of the Swachh Survekshan 2022, as part of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 organised by the ministry of housing and urban affairs.

What is Swachh Survekshan?

• Swachh Survekshan is an annual survey of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation in cities and towns across India. It was launched as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

• The ministry of housing and urban affairs (MoHUA) first conducted the Swachh Survekshan survey in 2016 for the rating of 73 cities, followed by Swachh Survekshan-2017 conducted in January-February 2017 ranking 434 cities.

• The third round of Swachh Survekshan in 2018 was a quantum leap of scale. It was conducted across 4,203 cities in 66 days, and became the largest ever pan India sanitation survey in the world. 

• Swachh Survekshan has been instrumental in fostering a spirit of healthy competition among towns and cities to improve their service delivery to citizens and towards creating cleaner cities.

Objectives of the survey:

• To encourage large scale citizen participation.

• Ensure sustainability of initiatives taken towards garbage free and open defecation free cities. 

• Provide credible outcomes which would be validated by third party certification.

• Institutionalise existing systems through online processes.

• Create awareness amongst all sections of society about the importance of working together towards making towns and cities more habitable and sustainable. 

• To foster a spirit of healthy competition amongst towns and cities to improve their service delivery to citizens and move towards creating cleaner cities.

Swachh Survekshan 2022

• The seventh edition of Swachh Survekshan was conducted to study the progress of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) and rank the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) based on various cleanliness and sanitation parameters.

• This year, 4,355 cities participated in the survey including 91 Ganga towns and 62 cantonment zones and also saw an unprecedented number of citizens’ feedback. The assessment was conducted in three phases — July-August, September-October and November 2021 to January 2022.

• The overall marks for assessments was 7,500. The survekshan is made up of three components — service level progress (3,000), certification (2,250) and citizen voice (2,250).

• Over 19 lakh people gave face to face feedback. Nine crore citizen feedback was captured through various sources like Swachhata app, Vote For Your City app and MyGov app among others during the survey that was 100 per cent digitised, with complete online submission for all documents by ULBs through a dedicated online portal.

• The vision of a Garbage Free India under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0 was given further impetus by announcing the results of 7-star and 5-star rated cities under the Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities. The revised Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities was launched in 2021 to evaluate cities across solid waste management parameters. This year, the number has gone up manifold with 3,600 cities applying for the assessment against 2,238 last year.

Top performers in Swachh Survekshan 2022

• Indore won the cleanest city title for the sixth consecutive year, in the ‘more than 1 lakh population’ category, while Surat was adjudged the second cleanest city, for the second time in a row. Navi Mumbai bagged the third spot. 

• In the category of cities having a population of less than one lakh, Maharashtra’s Panchgani was ranked number one, followed by Chhattisgarh’s Patan (Nagar Palika) and Maharashtra’s Karhad.

• Haridwar was adjudged the cleanest Ganga town in the category of more than 1 lakh population, followed by Varanasi and Rishikesh. 

• Bijnor was ranked at the top among Ganga towns with fewer than one lakh population, followed by Kannauj and Garhmukhteshwar respectively.

• The 10 top-ranked cities with a population of more than one lakh are: Indore, Surat, Navi Mumbai, GVMC Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Bhopal, Tirupati, Mysore, New Delhi and Ambikapur.

• Agra was at the bottom in the list of 100 cities in this segment. Madhya Pradesh’s Gadarwara was at the bottom in the category of cities with less than one lakh population.

• Madhya Pradesh emerged as the ‘Cleanest State’ in the category of ‘more than 100 Urban Local Bodies’ followed by Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. Chhattisgarh was ranked first last year.

• In the state category with fewer 100 urban local bodies, Tripura has been ranked first followed by Jharkhand and Uttarakhand.

• Indore cemented its position by emerging as India’s first 7-star Garbage Free city, while Surat, Bhopal, Mysuru, Navi Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Tirupati earned 5-star Garbage Free certifications. While Indore and Surat retained their top positions among cities, Vijayawada lost its third spot to Navi Mumbai.

• Number of star-rated cities has gone up to 412 (with 11 five-star cities, 182 three-star cities, and 218 one-star cities), thus signifying how cities’ aspirations towards becoming Garbage Free is getting enhanced.

• Maharashtra's Deolali was adjudged the country’s cleanest Cantonment Board, followed by Ahmedabad and Mhow (Madhya Pradesh).

• The New Delhi Municipal Council area was ranked first in the ‘country’s cleanest small city’ category, having a population between 1 lakh and 3 lakh.

• Noida emerged as the country’s ‘best self sustainable medium city’ in the category of 3-10 lakh population. Tirupati bagged the first award in the category of ‘Safaimitra Surakshit Sahar’'. 

• Chandigarh has secured the first position in the category of ‘Fastest Mover State/National Capital or UT’ while Vijayawada has emerged as the winner in the category of ‘Cleanest State/National Capital or UT’. 

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