Indore cleanest in country, Gonda filthiest, says survey
Indore in Madhya Pradesh is India’s cleanest city and Gonda in Uttar Pradesh the filthiest, a nationwide cleanliness survey by the urban development ministry has found.
The survey of 434 cities, conducted as part of the Modi government’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission, has seen the historic city in MP knock off Karnataka’s Mysuru, which has been topping the rankings.
Mysuru slipped to number five, an indication it failed to stick to the sanitation standards it achieved in 2016 and 2014. Waste collection, solid-waste processing and checking open defecation were among other criteria cities were measured against.
Bhopal, another city in the B JPruled MP, Visakhapatnam in And hr a Pradesh and Surat in Gujarat are the other five cleanest cities, says the third edition of the Swachh Survekshan released on Thursday by urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu.
The cleanliness survey was carried out during January and February.
Launched in 2014, the Swachh Bharat campaign aims to make India clean and open-defecation free by 2019. The New Delhi Municipal Council area, the Capital’s power district where 1.5 % of Delhi’s 16.78 million resident live, is out of the top five. It slipped to seventh position, dropping three places from last year. The rest of Delhi, too, failed to impress.
India’s most populous state UP is the dirtiest. Fifty of the 62 of its cities that were surveyed ranked below 300. The holy city of Varanasi, which is also PM Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, is the only exception. It was ranked 32.
Gonda, at own in UP, is the dirtiest at 434. Bhusawal in Maharashtra is a rank above. Bihar’s Bagaha is at 432, Hardoi in UP 431 and Bihar’s Katihar at 430.
North India continues to fare poorly. Of the 10 dirtiest cities five are in Uttar Pradesh, two each in Bihar and Punjab and one in Maharashtra.
It also points to the problem the authorities face in informing people about the link between sanitation and public health.
Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday released the Swachh Survekshan 2017 report, ranking 434 cities on cleanliness. The third nationwide survey, which evaluated the cities on waste collection, solid waste management, construction of toilets, sanitation strategies and behaviour change communication, had no good news for Punjab. Though 16 Punjab cities were surveyed, not a single figured among the top 100. HT puts the spotlight on the sorry state of cleanliness in major cities of the state.