• President Droupadi Murmu conferred Swachh Survekshan 2024-25 Awards at an event in New Delhi on July 17.

• Ahmedabad was named the cleanest big city, followed by Bhopal and Lucknow in the government's annual cleanliness survey

• Indore, Surat, Navi Mumbai and Vijayawada among 23 cities were elevated to a newly formed ‘Super Swachh League Cities’ category for demonstrating exceptional performance in sanitation.

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.

• 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.

• Swachh Survekshan 2024-25 marks the 9th edition of the world’s largest urban cleanliness survey. The latest edition assessed over 4,500 cities.

What is new in this edition?

Swachh Survekshan 2024-25 adopted a smart, structured approach to assess urban cleanliness and service delivery, using 10 well-defined parameters with 54 indicators — offering a complete view of sanitation and waste management in cities.

Super Swachh League: This edition unfolds a very special league, Super Swachh League (SSL) — a separate league of cities excelling in cleanliness. The introduction of the SSL serves a dual purpose. It inspires top-performing cities to reach even higher standards of cleanliness, while also motivating other cities to improve their performance and compete for top rankings. The SSL features cities that have ranked in the top three at least once in the last three years and remain in the top 20 per cent of their respective population category in the current year.

For the first time ever, cities have been classified into five population-based categories: 

1) Very Small Cities: Less than 20,000 population

2) Small Cities: 20,000 - 50,000 population

3) Medium Cities: 50,000 - 3 lakh population

4) Big Cities: 3 - 10 lakh population

5) Million-Plus Cities: More than 10 lakh population. 

Each category has been evaluated using parameters specifically tailored to its size and unique needs. 

This year’s Swachh Survekshan not only refined and streamlined the framework for big cities, but also simplified it for small cities, encouraging them to compete and climb the ladder of cleanliness. The smaller cities found a level playing ground with big cities in the survey.

Top honours:

• As many as 78 awards were presented this year across various categories.

• In Swachh Shehar category, Ahmedabad was at the top in the one-million population category, followed by Bhopal and Lucknow.

• In Super Swachh League, Indore is at the top spot followed by Surat (last year’s joint topper), Navi Mumbai (last year’s second), and Vijayawada. There are 23 cities in the Super Swachh League.

• Prayagraj was declared the cleanest city in the Ganga Town category. 

• Secunderabad Cantonment was honoured as the Best Cantonment Board for its exemplary sanitation efforts. 

• GVMC Visakhapatnam, Jabalpur, and Gorakhpur were declared Best Saifai Mitra Surakshit Shehar for their outstanding commitment to the safety and dignity of sanitation workers. 

• A special recognition was accorded to the Uttar Pradesh government, Prayagraj Mela Adhikari and Prayagraj Municipal Corporation for its urban waste management during the Maha Kumbh, the world’s largest congregation, which witnessed an estimated footfall of 66 crore people during January and February this year.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)