In the Union government’s annual cleanliness rankings for urban areas, Maharashtra secured the top spot among states, while Indore and Surat were declared the joint winners of the cleanest city award on Thursday.
According to the Swachh Survekshan Awards, Indore has been the cleanest city for seven years running. For the first time, Surat—which had finished third behind Indore the previous three years—won the top prize.
Swachh Survekshan 2023 dashboard from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs shows that 100% of waste was collected door-to-door in both cities, 98% of waste was segregated at the source, and 100% of dumpsites were cleaned up. Among cities with a population of more than one lakh, both cities shared first place.
Door-to-door garbage collection, waste segregation at the source, clean water bodies, public area cleanliness, and citizen input on city cleanliness are all considered in the rankings.
This was the first time that two cities shared the top honour in the eight rounds of yearly awards that have taken place since 2016. Mumbai’s Navi area was ranked as the third cleanest city.
Maharashtra is the cleanest state, with 89.24% door-to-door collection and 67.76% source segregation. With 90.59% door-to-door and 54.1% source segregation, Madhya Pradesh comes in second.
According to Safaimitra Surakshit Shehar, Chandigarh was declared the city with the highest safety standards for sanitation workers. One study ranked Varanasi as the cleanest “Ganga town.” Out of all the cities with fewer than one lakh residents, Sasvad in Maharashtra was found to be the cleanest. Mhow Cantonment was named the cleanest cantonment in the country.
Conversely, the lowest five states were ranked as follows: Mizoram, Rajasthan, Nagaland, Tripura, and Arunachal Pradesh.
The number of cities included in the annual list has grown over time, beginning with 73 in 2016. 88 Ganga towns, 61 cantonments, and 4,416 urban local entities were included in the 2023 round. The ministry reports that 19.82 lakh in-person views and 1.58 crore online public feedback were gathered for the ranking.
At a ceremony held here, President Droupadi Murmu stressed the value of generating profit from garbage. She claimed that mounds of trash covered a significant portion of urban land, endangering people’s health. She mentioned that such legacy dumpsites were being phased out under the Swachh Bharat Mission.
According to Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, the percentage of waste that is scientifically processed has reached about 76%, up from 15–16% in 2014. Manoj Joshi, the secretary of housing and urban affairs, stated that cities were aiming for 100% garbage processing. According to him, there are still occasional cases of sanitation personnel manually cleaning sewers, which might result in mishaps and fatalities and needs to be “completely eliminated.”
Top 10 big cities (over 10 lakh population) in 2023:
Indore (same rank in 2022)
Surat (same rank in 2022)
Navi Mumbai (same rank in 2022)
Visakhapatnam (same rank in 2022)
Bhopal (rank 6 in 2022)
Vijayawada (rank 5 in 2022)
Greater Hyderabad (rank 10 in 2022)
Pune (rank 9 in 2022)
Raipur (rank 11 in 2022)
Pimpri Chinchwad (rank 19 in 2022)
