Swachh Survekshan Awards

Recently Union government announced the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2023.

• An annual cleanliness ranking for urban areas since 2016.
• Released by – Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• Coverage – Originally 73 cities in 2016, now has increased along with 4,416 urban local bodies, 61 cantonments and 88 Ganga towns.
• About 1.58 crore online citizen feedback and 19.82 lakh face-to-face views were received as a part of the ranking.
•  Criteria
  • Door-to-door collection of waste
  • Segregation at source
  • cleanliness of public areas
  • Clean water bodies
  • Citizens’ feedback regarding the cleanliness of their cities

2023 Awards

• Among Cities with >1 lakh population – Indore and Surat were named the joint winners with 100% door-to-door collection of waste & remediation of dumpsites and 98% segregation at source.

2023 was the 7^th year in a row that Indore was named the cleanest city in the Swachh Survekshan Awards. Surat won the top award for the 1^st time. Of the 8 rounds of annual awards since 2016, this was the 1^st time that 2 cities shared the top prize.

• Among States – Maharashtra bagged the top spot with 89.24% door-to-door collection and 67.76% source segregation followed by Madhya Pradesh.
• Sasvad in Maharashtra was named the cleanest city among those with population below 1 lakh.
• Chandigarh won the award for the city having the best safety standards for sanitation workers, Safaimitra Surakshit Shehar.
• Varanasi was named the cleanest ‘Ganga town’.
• Mhow Cantonment was the cleanest cantonment in the country.
• Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Nagaland and Tripura were ranked the bottom five states.

Scientific processing of waste had increased from 15-16% in 2014 to almost 76% by Jan 2024.