Ahmedabad named cleanest city, past winners Indore and Surat elevated out of rankings to new ‘super league’

This year, the awards included a separate category of recognition for cities that had been in the top three of their categories in the previous three years. This new category of Super Swachh League Cities included Indore, Surat, Navi Mumbai and Vijayawada among cities with more than 10 lakh population; and Noida, Chandigarh, Mysuru, Ujjain and Gandhinagar among cities with 3 lakh to 10 lakh population. Last year, Indore and Surat were jointly recognised as the cleanest cities, with Indore maintaining its top position for the seventh consecutive time.

Speaking during the event, the President said using minimum resources and re-using them for the same or different purposes had been a part of Indian lifestyle.

She said the principles of circular economy and “reduce-reuse-recycle” were the modern versions of the ancient lifestyle. Citing the example of tribal communities, she said the modern systems of circularity can adopt the simple lifestyles of such communities.

In the national rankings, among cities with a population of three lakh to 10 lakh, Mira Bhayandar got the top spot, followed by Bilaspur and Jamshedpur in second and third place, respectively. A special award was also given to the Uttar Pradesh government and Prayagraj Municipal Corporation for the waste management during the Mahakumbh.

The awards, instituted under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, were started in 2016 with 73 cities. This year, 4,589 cities were covered in the survey.

Speaking at the event, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Manohar Lal said the ministry will launch a special one-year campaign to remediate legacy landfills on August 15. One of the goals of the SBM-U 2.0, which was launched in 2021, was to remediate 100% of all legacy landfills in cities by 2026. With a year to go, the SBM-U dashboard shows that 42% of the waste across cities is yet to be remediated. The Minister said the “accelerated dumpsite remediation program” would be launched to fast-track remediation and increase waste processing capacity. Later, speaking to the media, the Minister said the government would help cities and state governments with the remediation projects, after assessing the cause for the delay, including financing and tendering.