Cleanliness Survey: Madhya Pradesh cities rule the list

This is the second survey to score the Swachh Bharat or Clean India mission in 434 cities across India.

Indore and Bhopal of Madhya Pradesh were declared as the cleanest cities of India in a government survey under its flagship Swachh Bharat mission. The survey which was conducted across the country aiming to capture the outcomes of Swachh mission involved feedback from lakhs of people about the sanitation in their respective cities and towns.

Mysuru which topped the list during last Swachh survey slipped to fifth position. Other cities in top ten included Bhopal, Visakhapatnam, Surat, Tiruchirapally, New Delhi Municipal Council, Navi Mumbai, Vadodara and Chandigarh.

This is the second survey to score the Swachh Bharat or Clean India mission in 434 cities across India.

While releasing the result on Thursday, union urban development minister Venkaiah Naidu said, “Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are the movers and shakers of the ongoing drive….But it is a matter of concern that the condition is so bad in Uttar Pradesh, which is the country's most populous state.”

“We are all going there tomorrow for discussions. The state is big, the challenge is big. We have decided to focus on that,” the minister added. Officials said that Naidu will review the implementation of central sector and centrally sponsored urban schemes in Uttar Pradesh on Friday. 

The minister stressed that this year’s survey results are “Citizens’ Verdict” on cleanliness in urban areas of the country with 37 lakh citizens’ enthusiastically providing feedback on cleanliness in 434 cities and towns accounting for about 60% of the total urban population in the country. He said that such survey will be commissioned in all the 4,041 statutory towns and cities.

Naidu said that in Swachh Surekshan-2017, all the cities surveyed in Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand have substantially improved their rankings over that of 2016 and 2014. Gujarat did so in respect of all cities excepting Rajkot and similar being the case in respect of Chattisgarh except Bilaspur. In Telangana, only two cities have dropped in rankings this year while it happened in respect of four cities in Andhra Pradesh.

Naidu said that a total of 14 States were represented in the Top 50 clean cities with Gujarat accounting for 12, followed Madhya Pradesh-11, Andhra Pradesh-8 and one each from Chandigarh, Chattisgarh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Sikkim and Uttar Pradesh.

Similarly, 25 towns from Uttar Pradesh are ranked among the bottom 50 cities with followed by Rajasthan and Punjab with five each, two in Maharashtra and one each from Haryana, Karnataka and Lashadweep.

PM Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi has however, improved its rank from 418 in 2014 to 32 this year to become the Fastest Big City Mover in the North Zone.

“UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Punjab and Kerala need to substantially step up efforts to improve sanitation standards in urban areas,” added the minister.

Key points:

  • Top ten cities included Indore, Bhopal, Visakhapatnam, Surat, Mysuru, Tiruchirapally, New Delhi Municipal Council, Navi Mumbai, Vadodara and Chandigarh.
  • A total of 434 cities participated in the Swachh Survekshan 2017.
  • Out of the 62 cities and towns surveyed in UP in 2017, 41 of them figure among the bottom 100 cities/towns.  Varanasi is the only saving grace with a rank of 32.
  • In Bihar, 19 of 27 cities and towns surveyed are ranked beyond 300 with best rank in the State being 147 for Biharsharif. 15 of these 27 cities are among the bottom 100.
  • In Rajasthan, 18 of 29 cities surveyed are ranked beyond 300 and 13 are among the bottom 100. Best Rank for the State being 171 for Bundi.
  • In Kerala, of the 9 cities surveyed in 2017, best rank for the State is 254 for Kozhikode (Calicut) and four are among the bottom 100.
  • In Delhi, the civic bodies have finished poorly in the cleanliness as areas falling under the three municipal corporations are at a low -- the EDMC (196), SDMC (202) and NDMC (279).
  • The Delhi Cantonment Board stands at number 172 while the New Delhi Municipal Council area, which houses the country's power corridors, has slipped to seventh from its fourth position last year.

Methodology for ranking of the cities

45 % marks for cities becoming open defecation free, solid waste management (including sweeping, collection, transportation and processing of garbage), education and capacity building.

25 % marks for field inspection

30 % for citizen feedback

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