Indore Is The Cleanest City Yet Again, Also Becomes India’s First 7-Star Garbage-free City

Indore, the city of lakes and palaces, has been adjudged India's cleanest city sixth time in a row.

Surat and Navi Mumbai took the next two spots in the central government's annual cleanliness survey, Swachh Survekshan 2022.

Indore and Surat retained their top positions in the big cities category, while Vijayawada lost its third place to Navi Mumbai.

Among states with fewer than 100 urban local bodies (ULBs), Tripura bagged the top rank.

India celebrated eight years of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and the first anniversary of SBM-Urban 2.0 in grand style as President Droupadi Murmu felicitated the awardees of the cleanest states and cities.

More than 160 awards under various categories, plus certifications for garbage-free star rating for cities, were given at the award ceremony.

It is meant to recognise the good work done for swachhata (cleanliness) by towns or cities, states, and union territories under Swachh Survekshan 2022.

The President formally released the Swachh Survekshan 2022 dashboard and gave away the top 12 awards.

In the population category of ‘less than 1 lakh’, Panchgani and Karad from Maharashtra bagged the first and third positions respectively for cleanliness, while Patan from Chhattisgarh bagged the second place.

Tirupati received the best city award in Safai Mitra Suraksha, while Haridwar in Uttarakhand received the award for the best Ganga town in the category of cities with more than one lakh population.

Shivamogga in Karnataka received the fast mover city award.

Indore further cemented its top place 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.

The state awards saw a few surprises. Madhya Pradesh emerged as the cleanest state in the category of 'more than 100 Urban Local Bodies', relegating Chhattisgarh, the cleanest state these past three years, to second place.

Maharashtra emerged as the third cleanest state.

Similarly, Tripura emerged as the cleanest state in the 'less than 100 ULBs' category, dislodging Jharkhand, which had won the last two years.

Jharkhand and Uttarakhand took the second and third spots respectively.

Over the years, Swachh Survekshan has emerged as an effective tool for transforming the urban landscape. This year’s Survekshan in 4,355 cities also saw unprecedented citizen feedback — over nine crore entries compared to five core last year.

In all, 22 states and five union territories received awards, of which eight received more than 10 awards each.

Eight states and five union territories registered improvements ranging between 5 and 25 per cent in their overall performance over the last year. Of them, four of the eight North Eastern states have shown good growth.

Moreover, 10 cantonment boards (against seven last year) and two Ganga towns received awards.

A heartening feature of the awards was that smaller cities with a population of less than 25,000 performed admirably in the survey, with 40 of them receiving awards.

The President had special words of praise for Indore, which, she said, should become a role model for other cities.

She exhorted the citizens to join in the three-week-long source segregation campaign scheduled to begin from 2 October 2022.

President Murmu expressed hope that by 2026 India’s urban areas will become garbage-free.

She concluded with a wish for a swasth (healthy), sasakth (strong), and swachh (clean) India.