CHENNAI: The Swachh Survekshan ranking for clean cities released by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs had put Chennai in 199th place among 466 cities in the category.
Officials attribute the rankings to a change in parameters compared with the previous year. In 2022, cities with more than 10 lakh population were taken up for rankings. But in 2023, cities with less than 1 lakh population were grouped in one category and cities with more than 1 lakh population in another.
Corporation officials said in terms of overall score, Chennai had shown improvement compared to last year. In 2022, Chennai got 2866.14 out of 7500 (total marks) and obtained a 37.5% core. In 2023, Chennai got 4313.79 out of 9500 and obtained a 45.4% overall score. Chennai also scored higher than the state average (2,988) and national average (3,526) for local bodies.
“Chennai is in a transition phase with large-scale infrastructure projects like the metro rail works and work undertaken by metro board in extended areas. Bio-mining projects to clear legacy wastes and establishing waste-to-gas and energy generation plants are also underway. Once these projects are completed, Chennai will fare much better in the rankings,” a senior corporation official said.