When the first competition for Swachhta Sarvekshan was announced in 2016, 75 urban cities across the country participated. The second edition saw Ahmedabad at 14th rank and this year too it retains the same position. It went on to win the 14th rank, competing with almost 500 urban and rural cities and towns.
Now, the third edition will include 4,041 towns and cities under one competition with a revised methodology, the central government said.
500 cities will have an all-India ranking with a population of more than one lakh. This will also include states and union territory capitals.
The remaining 3,541 cities with less than one lakh population will have state and zonal rankings.
The cities will be ranked based on 71 sanitation-related parameters with different weightage. The cumulative marks will be 4,000. The 2017 survey had total 2,000 marks.
Negative marking has been introduced this time to ensure cities do not make false claims about improvement in sanitation infrastructure.
If claims of a city government on any parameter are found to be incorrect by independent assessors, it will get zero marks for that parameter. Also, it will attract a 33 per cent negative marking on the total obtained marks.
"This year we are going to introduce some changes in sanitation management," said Mukesh Gadhvi, deputy municipal commissioner.
There are some changes in the assessment weightage with the introduction of citizen feedback. "This year, there is 35 per cent weightage of citizen feedback instead of previous year's 30 per cent.
Similarly, the weightage of direct observation has also been increased to 30 per cent from 25 per cent in the previous survey," said Dr Bhavin Solanki, in-charge medical officer of health, AMC.
"A new element of innovation has been introduced this year with 5 per cent weightage in the total ranking points," added Dr Solanki.
The Survekshan is set to begin in January 2018 and the results will be announced in March.
RANKING CRITERIA
All-India ranking
500 cities population over one lakh. (includes states and union territory capitals)
State & zonal rankings
3,541 cities: population of less than one lakh
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