The State awards saw a few surprises. Madhya Pradesh emerged as the ‘Cleanest State’ in the category of “more than 100 Urban Local Bodies”, relegating Chhattisgarh, the Cleanest State of the previous 3 years, to second place. Maharashtra emerged as third cleanest State.  Similarly, Tripura emerged as the Cleanest State award in the “less than 100 ULBs category”, dislodging Jharkhand, which had won in the last 2 consecutive years. Jharkhand and Uttarakhand received the second and third spots respectively.

Over the years, Swachh Survekshan (SS) has emerged as an effective tool for transforming the urban landscape. This year’s Survekshan participated by 4,355 cities, also saw an unprecedented number of citizens’ feedback – over 9 crores, compared to 5 cores last year. In all, 22 States and 5 UTs received awards, of whom 8 States received more than 10 awards each. 8 States and 5 UTs have shown improvements ranging between 5 – 25% in their overall ground level performance over last year. Of them, 4 out the 8 North Eastern states have shown significant improvement in the overall performance over the last year. Moreover, 10 Cantonment Boards (against 7 CBs last year) and 2 Ganga towns received awards. A heartening feature of the awards was that smaller cities with population of less than 25,000 have performed admirably in the survey, with 40 of them receiving awards today.

The vision of a Garbage Free India under SBM-U 2.0 was given further impetus by announcing the results of 7-star and 5-star rated cities under the Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities. The revised Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities was launched in 2021 to holistically evaluate cities across solid waste management parameters. This year, the number has gone up manifold with 3,600 cities applying for the assessment against 2,238 last year, and number of Star rated cities has gone up to 412 (with 11 five-star cities, 182 three-star cities, and 218 one-star cities), thus signifying how cities’ aspirations towards becoming Garbage Free is getting enhanced.

Speaking at the event, the President said, “I congratulate all the awardee cities for their commitment to the cause of Swachhata”. The President had special words of praise for Indore who she said should become a role model for other cities . The President exhorted the citizens to join in the three-week long source segregation campaign scheduled to begin from 2^nd Oct 2022 and expressed the hope that by 2026 India’s urban areas will become Garbage Free . The President complimented the citizens of the country and concluded with a wish for a ‘swasth’ ‘ sasakth’ and ‘swachh’ India.

Hardeep S Puri, Union Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs and Kaushal Kishore, Minister of State for Housing & Urban Affairs also felicitated the awardee cities and States.  Congratulating the cities for their efforts, the Union Minister said, “achievements under SBM-U have been the result of the collective efforts of the citizens of urban India. Today, the Mission has taken the shape of a people’s movement, a true ‘Jan Andolan’. The Minister concluded his address by appealing to all citizens to begin a 3-week focused campaign of source segregation from 2^nd Oct, on the occasion of Swachhata Divas, so that India’s journey towards Garbage Free status is accelerated manifold. The event was attended by over 1,500 guests comprising Mayors and other political representatives, diplomats, state and city administrators and senior officials, sector partners and brand ambassadors, academic institutions, industry associations, startups, NGOs and CSOs,  while citizens from across India joined virtually to witness this occasion. Cities had also put up screens in prominent places to enable their citizens to view the live ceremony.

The spirit of celebration was further enhanced through the release of an audio-visual song and documentary, by the President, capturing the journey of SBM till date and the road ahead. The theme of the audio-visual song was ‘Garv‘, reiterating the pride in the goals attained so far and pride in finishing the unfinished too, and featured various celebrity ambassadors of the Mission such as P V Sindhu and Mithali Raj. The song is an effort to reinvigorate people to carry forward the SBM-U 2.0 journey in the days ahead.

The Award ceremony was a platform for reaffirmation of commitment from cities and citizens to move forward with renewed vigour towards the vision of Garbage Free cities.

Also Read: