Swachh Survekshan 2023: Indore retains cleanest city title | Fusion - WeRIndia

In the recently unveiled Swachh Survekshan 2023, Indore in Madhya Pradesh continues its remarkable streak as the cleanest city in India for the seventh consecutive year.

However, the grim contrast is found in Howrah, West Bengal, which claims the unenviable title of the dirtiest city in the country. Kolkata and Bhatpara also join Howrah in the unfortunate rankings.

A surprising revelation from the survey is that all ten of the dirtiest cities, each with a population exceeding one lakh, hail from West Bengal.  Notably, eight of these cities, excluding Kolkata and Bhatpara, have a cleanliness score of less than 1,000.

Indore is not alone in its cleanliness prowess. Surat in Gujarat, Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra, Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, and Bhopal in Madhya Prades make up the top five cleanest cities.

States like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh are recognized for their high sanitation standards, while Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, and Nagaland lag in cleanliness.

Smaller urban centres also received recognition, with Saswad in Maharashtra earning the cleanest city award for populations under one lakh.

Patan in Chhattisgarh and Lonavla in Maharashtra follow closely as the second and third cleanest in this category.

Varanasi and Prayagraj receive accolades as the cleanest Ganga towns. MHOW Cantonment Board in Madhya Pradesh is recognized as the cleanest cantonment town.

Swachh Survekshan 2023 stands out as the largest cleanliness survey globally, featuring 4,447 urban local bodies and over 12 crore citizen responses.

The survey, conducted under the Swachh Bharat Urban Mission since 2016, aims to encourage citizen participation to enhance cleanliness and waste management.

Besides, it also intends to create awareness and foster competition among towns and cities in this direction.

With a primary goal of creating better places to reside, the Swachh Survekshan assesses cities across 46 indicators. Some of them are segregated door-to-door waste collection, disabled-friendly toilets, zero waste events etc.

As the eighth year of the survey concludes, it serves as a reminder of the collective responsibility to build cleaner and more sustainable urban environments.

Image by Abhinav Thakur from Pixahive (Free for commercial use / CC0 Public Domain)

Image Reference: https://pixahive.com/photo/street-landscape-2/