Swachh rankings: Mysuru is India’s cleanest city, Dhanbad filthiest

Karnataka’s Mysuru is India’s cleanest city for the second year in a row while Chandigarh, Tiruchirapalli , the New Delhi Municipal Council --where 1.5 % of Delhi’s 16.78 million resident live – and Visakhapatnam make up the top five , a nationwide survey by the Urban Development (UD) ministry has found.

A similar survey in 2014 ranked Mysuru and Tiruchirappali among the five cleanest cities as well.

The “Swachhta Sarvekshan” that covered 73 cities with a population of over one million ranked Varanasi --Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency -- among the bottom ten dirtiest cities.

The other in the dirty list included Dhanbad, Asansol, Patna, Meerut, Raipur, Ghaziabad, Jamshedpur, Kalyan Dombivilli and Itanagar.

In October 2014, Modi wielded the broom in the Capital to promote cleanliness as part of his pet Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM).

But except the NDMC, which is home to the city’s VIPs and is ranked fourth, the rest of Delhi continues to be among India’s dirtiest.

The Capital has been ranked based on its three municipal corporations. While East Delhi Municipal Corporation is ranked 52, North and South Delhi Municipal Corporation are 43 and 39 respectively.

Geographically, cities in the south and west fared better than those in the north and east.

The cities were ranked on their performance on each of the components of SBM -- solid waste management, construction of individual, community and public toilets and sanitation strategies and behavior change communication.

Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu announced the result. This is the second such survey carried out as part of the government’s flagship Swachh Bharat Mission to make India clean and open defecation free by 2019.

The PM’s message on cleanliness does not seem to have had much of an effect in his constituency Varanasi. The holy city – which got over Rs 20,000 crore since 2014 to upgrade its rundown civic infrastructure -- ranks 65 in the list of 73 on account of its abysmal sanitation facilities.

In 2014, the ministry had carried out a similar exercise in 476 cities and municipalities with a population of over one lakh. The survey had found Delhi ranked among the dirtiest while Mysore, Bangalore, Kochi and Navi Mumbai were the cleanest.

Of the Rs 62,009 crore earmarked for SBM till 2019, while the Centre’s contribution is Rs 14, 623 crore, state government’s will fork out Rs 4874 crore. The remaining contribution of Rs 42, 512 crore is to be borne mainly by the private sector.