New Delhi: Mysuru in Karnataka has retained its position as the cleanest among all million plus and capital cities while Dhanbad in Jharkhand has been ranked the worst. These are findings of the first ever cleanliness ranking of cities since Swachh Bharat Mission was launched in October 2014.
Cities in the top 10 club include Chandigarh, Visakhapatnam, Surat, Rajkot, Gangtok and Greater Mumbai while the worst 10 include Varanasi, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Patna and Kalyan-Dombivili. Results are based on the marks scored in respects of the main components of Swachh Bharat Mission, availability of infrastructure and service levels related to sanitation such as individual household toilets, public and community toilets and collection, transportation and processing of municipal solid waste, The Times of India reported.
Last cleanliness survey was conducted in 2014 before the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission. It covered all 476 cities that have a population of above one lakh each and results were announced in 2015. While 2014 survey involved a heterogeneous group of cities with population ranging from one lakh to over 50 lakhs this time the rankings were done among comparables.
A release issued by the urban development ministry said that the objective of the survey was to measure the scenario regarding sanitation in selected cities, efforts made by these cities to improve sanitation through necessary strategies, to assess the impact of Swachh Bharat Mission and to promote a spirit of healthy competition among cities.
While results of 2014 survey showed how cities in the South and West fare better than those in the North and the East, now there are signs of cities from north doing well and can overtake some of their competitors soon.
Based on 2014 ranks for the 73 cities, four have improved their ranks to break into top 10 this time. These are Visakhapatnam, Surat, Rajkot and Gangtok. Top 10 cities among the 73 cities in 2014 survey in order of rank were Mysuru, Greater Mumbai, Tiruchirapalli, Chennai, Pune, Navi Mumbai, New Delhi Municipal Council, Nashik, Pimpri Chindwad and Chandigarh.
Four of these 10 cities that dropped out of the top 10 list in 2016 survey are Navi Mumbai, Chennai, Pune and Nashik.
“This is the first evidence of churning and keenness on the part of cities to compete with others and improve sanitation and rankings by catching up with well performing cities,” an official of the urban development ministry said.