India’s Cleanest Cities

As part of the Swachh Bharat movement, the ministry of urban development annually ranks India’s cities by cleanliness. Swachh Survekshan 2017 ranked Indore as India’s cleanest and found Gonda at the bottom of the heap. Varanasi, PM Narendra Modi’s constituency, came in at #32. Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh account for with 31 of the top 50 cities. According to the Swachh Survekshan website, the survey aims to “foster a healthy competition... for improving cleanliness”. But the Centre for Science and Environment, an NGO, argues that the survey rewards cities that fail to manage waste in environmentally sustainable ways, and penalises cities like Panjim, which adopt more decentralised approaches.