Ahmedabad was Thursday named the cleanest big city in the country in the Swachh Survekshan 2024-25 awards, followed by Bhopal and Lucknow, even as past winners, including Indore and Surat, were moved to a new 'Super Swachh League' category that was kept out of the nationwide ranking. President Droupadi Murmu presented the award to Ahmedabad for being the top city among those with a population of 10 lakh or above during the awards ceremony in New Delhi. 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 in 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, President Murmu said that using minimum resources and reusing them for the same or different purposes had been a part of the 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 3 lakh to 10 lakh, Mira Bhayandar got the top spot, followed by Bilaspur and Jamshedpur in the second and third places, respectively. A special award was also given to the Uttar Pradesh government and Prayagraj Municipal Corporation for 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 Khattar said the ministry will launch a special one-year campaign to remediate legacy landfills on August 15. One of the goals of Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0, which was launched in 2021, was to remediate 100 per cent of all legacy landfills in cities by 2026. With a year to go, the SBM-U dashboard shows that 42 per cent of the waste across cities is yet to be remediated. The minister said an “accelerated dumpsite remediation" programme would be launched to fast-track remediation and increase waste processing capacity. Later, speaking to the media, he said the government would assist cities and state governments with remediation projects, after assessing the causes of the delay, including financing and tendering.
