On Thursday, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister, Hardeep Singh, declared the results for Swachh Survekshan 2020. The Swachh Survekshan 2020 is a survey of cleanliness that finds out the top cleanest cities of India. The results were declared in the virtual event ‘Swachh Mahotsav.’ Indore held up the title of being the cleanest city of India for the fourth year in a stretch. However, Surat and Navi Mumbai were successful enough to be awarded the second and third positions respectively.
The Swachh Survekshan 2020 is considered the world’s largest cleanliness survey held by the Ministry of Urban Development. In a time of 28 days, around 4242 cities were covered for checking up with the cleanliness level.
Here’s a list of all the top 10 cleanest cities of India
- Indore
- Surat
- Navi Mumbai
- Vijayawada
- Ahmedabad
- Rajkot
- Bhopal
- Chandigarh
- GVMC Visakhapatnam
- Vadodara
Indore winning the first position for the cleanest cities in India hasn’t been a surprise for many because it has been on that list for the past four years.
Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar took to Twitter to congratulate the city on its win. Hailing the victory, he wrote that the city had become an inspiration for the entire country for maintaining cleanliness by grabbing the first position for the fourth time in a row. In his tweet, he also congratulated the residents and Chief Minister of the state, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, on the win.
Swachh Survekshan
This year marked the fifth edition of Swachh Survekshan launched by the government. With the coming of the BJP government led by Narendra Modi, efforts are being made to take proper care of the sanitation and cleanliness of cities. The government is also taking care of cleanliness and rejuvenation of the cities by launching different programs like Smart City Mission, AMRUT and Swachh Bharat Mission.
The big metropolitan cities and the smaller ones with a population less than a lakh also participated in the survey. Maharashtra surely took the lead by getting 20 spots in the top 25 spots when maintaining the cleanliness of small towns. The top three small cities that made it to the list include Karad, Sasvad and Lonavala, which are from Maharashtra. Chattisgarh was able to grab two spots in the top 25 list, while Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan made it to the list with one spot each.
A separate category was introduced for the cities located across the Ganga. The category checked for the performance of cleanliness and sanitation for all cities near Ganga. As far as the large Gangetic cities are concerned, Varanasi topped the list with Kanpur and Munger grabbing the second and third positions respectively. Prayagraj, the confluence point of holy Yamuna and Ganga made it to the 4th rank, while Haridwar, the land from where Ganga descends made it to the 5th rank. Furthermore, the Namani-Gange plan was launched in 2015 by the central government, an initiative to keep the Ganga clean.
Mr. Puri took to Twitter to congratulate the PM for Varanasi’s win as the cleanest city on the banks of river Ganga. In his tweet, he wrote,
Ancient holy town of Varanasi is rightfully the cleanest town on the banks of river Ganga.
— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) August 20, 2020
Heartiest congratulations to PM Shri @narendramodi Ji, who represents the city in Lok Sabha, for his visionary leadership which has inspired the people of the town for this achievement. pic.twitter.com/sPXxBpZUnq