NEW DELHI: The city of Dhanbad in Jharkhand has been ranked the dirtiest in the first survey after the launch of 'Swachh Bharat' mission in 2014.
The survey, which was released by Union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu here, covered 73 cities including 51 cities with more than 10 lakh population on cleanliness and sanitation.
Besides Dhanbad, the least clean cities included Asansol (West Bengal), Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh), Patna (Bihar), Meerut (Uttar Pradesh), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh), Jamshedpur (Jharkhand), Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) and Kalyan Dombivili (Maharashtra).
Mysuru has topped the list and emerged as the cleanest city followed by Chandigarh, Tiruchirappalli and NDMC area of the national capital.
"Swachh Survekshan-2016 is primarily intended to measure the impact of the efforts under Swachh Bharat Mission launched after the survey of 2014," Naidu said.
Cities from South and West continue to do well overall but those in other parts of the country, particularly, in the North are beginning to catch up with the traditional leaders, Naidu said.
"The results of the survey were analyzed to identify the top leaders, aspiring leaders, cities where accelerated efforts need to be made and the slow movers," he added.
Last cleanliness survey was conducted in 2014 among 476 cities with a population of one lakh and above and its results were announced last year. That survey was done before the launch of 'Swachh Bharat' mission'.
"This (ranking) is meant to help the cities know where they stand in absolute terms and in relation to others besides what more needs to be done by each city to ensure sanitation. In that sense, the survey is more holistic, participatory, purposeful and meaningful for future guidance and evolving course of action," the minister added.