Patna declared dirtiest city in country, Delhi and Chennai not far behind; cues to take from cleanest city Indore

Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs declared Bihar's capital Patna as the dirtiest city in the latest Swachh Survekshan survey. The city was followed by East Delhi and Chennai in the category of more than 1 million population.

 Delhi fails to find an appropriate ranking in cleanliness to justify its stature as a national capital city. South Delhi is ranked 31st, North Delhi at 43rd while East Delhi was placed at 46th spot. 

Union Territory of New Delhi, however, ranked first among the cleanest capitals in the country.

In less than 10 lakh population, Bihar's Gaya is the worst followed by Buxar city of Bihar and Abohar in Punjab.

Meanwhile, the centre declared Indore as India's cleanest city fourth time in a row under it Swachh Bharat Mission, while Varanasi, Modi's Lok Sabha seat was declared the 'Best Ganga Town' in the country, followed by Kanpur, Munger, Prayagraj, and Haridwar.

Cities like Surat and Navi Mumbai secured the second and third positions in the city's annual cleanliness survey.

Among the states with more than 100 cities, Chhattisgarh is the cleanliness state, while Jharkhand is on the top among the states with less than 100 cities. These two states are often counted among the most backward states of India, but they have pipped the bigger states of the country. Among the states with more than 100 cities, Karnataka is at the last number, while Arunachal Pradesh is the worst among the states with less than 100 cities.

Delhi, Chennai and other cities ranking low in the cleanliness survey needs to take cues from Indore who has followed through remarkably with the cleanliness guidelines.

Through the enormous contribution of the Indore administration and compliance of its citizens, the city has maintained its cleanliness. The NGOs and the Indore's Municipal Corporation have constantly engaged in communication with the citizens to instill the habit of cleanliness.

A command center has been set up in the city o track the garbage collected in the city besides installing GPS trackers on all the garbage collecting vehicles.

The administration have also removed large public dustbins, and instead garbage is collected from house-to-house. Moreover, the city is cleaned during the night, to kep the city nice and tidy for citizens going to work in the day.

In order to ensure garbage is collected from every household, all the garbage collecting vehicles are fitted with GPS trackers.

The administration has also taken the support of children to create awareness about cleanliness and made them brand ambassadors of cleanliness.

Till 2015, Indore was at 149th position in terms of cleanliness. Within two years, the administration made substantial changes in the course of action, making it the he cleanest city in the country.

Currently, 56 million kg of garbage is generated in India every year, but this will reach 1.45 lakh crore kg per year in 2030, according to a report of the Ministry of Environment. By 2050, India will have 7 times more garbage than today, and it will weigh 4 lakh crores kilograms.

Some of the key highlights of Swachh Survekshan 2020 are as follows:

• 1.87 crore citizen feedback received
• 1.7 crore citizens registered on Swachhata App
• Over 11 crore impressions on social media
• Over 5.5 lakh sanitary workers linked to social welfare schemes and over 84,000 informal waste pickers integrated into the mainstream
• Over 4 lakh contractual employees employed by Urban Local Bodies
• Over 21,000 Garbage Vulnerable Points identified and transformed

Over the years, digital innovations have always been at the forefront of the Mission enabling scaling up and better monitoring of outcomes along with increased citizen engagement. 

This has been reinforced with the launch of the integrated MIS portal by the Ministry recently which brings the numerous digital initiatives on a single platform thus ensuring a unified and hassle-free experience for States and cities and leading the way towards the creation of not just a Swachh but a truly digital India.