Swachh survey: Mumbai slips to 37th rank, Navi Mumbai 4th

In a silver lining, Mumbai topped the list of cities under the head of innovative ideas for waste management

Mumbai dropped two positions to rank 37th nationwide (out of 48 cities with a population of over 10 lakh) in the Central government’s Swachh Survekshan 2021 survey released on Thursday.

Navi Mumbai stood fourth in the list in the survey, a step down from last year’s third position. Mumbai topped the list of cities under the head of innovative ideas for waste management. (HT FILE)

Mumbai ranked second out of the thirteen cities that participated in the survey from the state. Navi Mumbai stood fourth in the list, a step down from last year’s third position. Mumbai topped the list of cities under the head of innovative ideas for waste management.

In the population category of ‘less than one lakh’, Vita, Lonavala and Sasvad, all three places from Maharashtra, bagged the top three positions.

The state has successfully bagged a total of 92 awards, the highest by any state in this year’s Survekshan, followed by Chhattisgarh with 67 awards, said the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in a statement.

Among other cities in the state, Pune was in fifth place, followed by Thane at 14th, while Nashik and Pimpri Chinchwad were 17th and 19th on the list. Further down the list, Aurangabad ranked 22nd, Nagpur 23rd, Kalyan Dombivali 25th and Vasai-Virar 29th.

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

As per the final results, Mumbai scored 2,021 out of the total 6,000 marks.

According to BMC officials, the overall rank may have slipped due to its poor representation as administrative priorities changed due to Covid-19 management.

Sangeeta Hasnale, Deputy Municipal Commissioner of the BMC, said, “It is not like our rank has slipped, but when you look at Mumbai and its challenges with the number of population, you will understand. We think we could not properly represent ourselves as administrative priorities had changed drastically in the past few months due to Covid-19 management.”

However, he added, “Our innovative ideas regarding waste management ranges from turning bio-waste into cooking gas, turning waste into energy for generating electricity etc. We have outperformed when it comes to coming up and implementing innovative ideas.”