NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation on Friday launched a rural cleanliness programme, the 'Swachh Survekshan Grameen 2018', to rank all states and districts on the basis of qualitative and quantitative evaluation.
"The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) has commissioned the survey on rural cleanliness and this ranking will be based on district-level surveys of public places like schools, anganwadis, haat-bazaars, panchayats and citizen's perception of Swachhta. Top performing states and districts will be awarded on October 2," secretary of the ministry of drinking water and sanitation, Parameshwaran Iyer, said.
The rankings will take a set of comprehensive cleanliness parameters into account. The criteria include a survey of public places, citizens' perspective of cleanliness, their recommendations and data from Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
The programme plans to survey 6,800 villages in 680 districts across the country. It also plans to cover 34,000 public places in the villages.
According to the ministry, to take feedback from citizens on the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, around 55,000 citizens would be interviewed and their views on sanitation issues would be taken. The ministry has engaged a private organization for the survey.
According to ministry officials, the information would be obtained from its Integrated Management Information System (IMIS).
"A mobile app and an online platform would be set up to collect information from citizens," a ministry official said.