Swachh Survekshan Awards 2021 presented

The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has felicitated the awardees of the cleanest cities of India at the ‘Swachh Amrit Mahotsav’ hosted as part of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0.

The awards recognize the good work done for Swachhata by towns/ cities, States and Union Territories under various initiatives of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), viz. Swachh Survekshan 2021, Safaimitra Suraksha Challenge, and certifications for Garbage Free Star rating for cities.

More than 300 awards under various categories were given. 

Swachh Survekshan (SS)

Over the years, Swachh Survekshan (SS) has emerged as an effective tool for transforming the urban landscape. Despite the on-ground challenges posed by COVID-19, a team of over 2,000 assessors visited over 65,000 wards in a record time of 28 days. Maharashtra has successfully bagged a total of 92 awards, the highest by any State in this year’s Survekshan, followed by Chhattisgarh with 67 awards. Additionally, under the Prerak Daaur Samman, a new performance category introduced under Swachh Survekshan 2021, five cities – Indore, Surat, Navi Mumbai, New Delhi Municipal Council and Tirupati were categorized as ‘Divya’ (Platinum).  This year’s Survekshan, participated by 4,320 cities, also saw an unprecedented number of citizens’ feedback – over 5 crores, compared to 1.87 cores last year. SS 2021 has also helped identify over 6,000 innovations and best practices in sanitation and waste management from across the urban India.

For the fifth consecutive year, Indore was awarded the title of India’s Cleanest City under Swachh Survekshan, while Surat and Vijayawada bagged the second and third spots respectively in the ‘more than 1 lakh population’ category.

In the population category of ‘less than 1 lakh’, Vita, Lonavala and Sasvad, all from Maharashtra, bagged the first, second and third positions respectively.

Varanasi emerged as the ‘Best Ganga Town’ while Ahmedabad Cantonment won the title of ‘India’s Cleanest Cantonment’, followed by Meerut Cantonment and Delhi Cantonment.

In the category of ‘Fastest Mover’, Hoshangabad (Madhya Pradesh) emerged as the ‘Fastest Mover City’ (in the ‘more than 1 lakh population’ category) with a jump of 274 ranks from 361st position in the 2020 rankings to the 87th position this year, thus securing a place among the top 100 cities. 

State awards

In the State awards, Chhattisgarh, for the third consecutive year emerged as the ‘Cleanest State’ in the category of “more than 100 Urban Local Bodies” while Jharkhand, for the second time, won the Cleanest State award in the “less than 100 ULBs category”. Karnataka and Mizoram became the ‘Fastest Mover States’ in the big (more than 100 ULBs) and small (less than 100 ULBs) state category respectively.

Safaimitra Suraksha Challenge

In the last one year, the SafaiMitra Suraksha Challenge has been able to propel the ‘manhole to machine hole’ revolution in urban India through initiatives such as credit linkages of SafaiMitras with banks through the National Safai Karamchari Financial Development Corporation (NSKFDC), on-the-job trainings through the Sector Skill Council for Green Jobs and setting up of helpline number 14420 in over 190 cities – a citizens’ grievance platform.

The top performers under the first ever Safaimitra Suraksha Challenge are Indore, Navi Mumbai, Nellore and Dewas emerged as the top performers, across different population categories among 246 participating cities in the Safaimitra Suraksha Challenge, launched last year by MoHUA to eradicate human fatalities from hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks. Among the States, Chhattisgarh and Chandigarh bagged the award for best performing State and Union Territory under the Challenge. 

Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities

The vision of a Garbage Free India under SBM-U 2.0 was given further impetus by announcing the results of 3-star and 5-star rated cities under the Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities.

The Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities was introduced as a SMART framework by MoHUA in 2018, to holistically evaluate cities across solid waste management parameters. In 2018, only 56 cities were awarded certification on some star rating.

A total of 9 cities – Indore, Surat, New Delhi Municipal Council, Navi Mumbai, Ambikapur, Mysuru, Noida, Vijayawada and Patan- have been certified as 5 star cities while 143 cities have been certified as 3 star.

 This year, the number has gone up manifold with 2,238 cities applying for the assessment. The mammoth exercise was completed successfully despite the COVID-19 restrictions as is evidenced in the numbers - 1.4 crore photographic evidence collected across 3.5 crore data points, along with 14.19 lakh citizen validation and 1 lakh locations covered during the assessment period.

Source : PIB