New Delhi/ Bhubaneswar: Odisha rose many notches high among the states in terms of cleanliness, even as three cities, including Bhubaneswar, of ‘India’s best kept secret’ registered their presence among the country’s top 100 having over one lakh population for sanitation and hygiene in the Swachh Survekshan 2023 for which the honours were given away by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) here, Thursday.
Odisha, which ranked ninth in previous edition of the survey in 2022, has moved to the fourth position now, while the Capital city of Bhubaneswar bettered its place to 34 from the earlier 80.
Apart from Bhubaneswar (34), Puri (62) and Balasore town (99) featured among the top 100 cities with over one lakh population. Chikiti (12) and Bhanjanagar (79), both in Ganjam district, were among the top 100 cities with less than one lakh population in the Swachh Survekshan 2023, the results of which were announced Thursday.
In the state category, Odisha is ranked fourth, followed by Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Sikkim, Karnataka, Goa, Haryana and Bihar.
Besides Indore and Surat – that bagged the cleanest city of India title, the list of top 10 cleanest cities with more than one lakh population includes Navi Mumbai, Greater Visakhapatnam, Bhopal, Vijayawada, New Delhi, Tirupati, Greater Hyderabad and Pune.
Maharashtra’s Saswad got the cleanest city award among 3,970 cities with less than one lakh population.
Three cities of West Bengal – Madhyamgram (444), Kalyani (445) and Haora (446) – occupied the bottom rankings. Rajasthan, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh are among the bottom three in the state category.
President Droupadi Murmu gave away the awards to the winners at an event held here. Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri attended the event.
According to the data, 4,477 urban local bodies participated in the Swachh Survekshan 2023 and 12 crore citizen responses were received. 92,720 municipal wards, 61 cantonment boards, 88 Ganga towns and 18,980 commercial areas participated in the survey. The government claims it to be the world’s largest cleanliness survey.
By Kuldeep Singh, OP