The awards were presented by Union Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri in a function held virtually on Thursday.
Among the towns along the banks of river Ganga, Varanasi has been awarded the cleanest town award. New Delhi has been awarded as the cleanest capital city in the country. Chhattisgarh was awarded the first place in the states with over 100 cities while Jharkhand bagged it for being the state in the category of states with less than 100 cities. Jalandhar Cantonment Board was conferred the cleanest cantonment board in the country. Ahmedabad in Gujarat was awarded for being the cleanest city with over 40 lakh population.
Speaking on the occasion, Union Minister Hardeep Puri said, Swachh Survekshan 2020 witnessed several innovations and best practices emerging from the cities. The Minister said that through a mix of innovative thinking, technological interventions and active stakeholder engagement, cities have found novel ways to address issues of sanitation and waste management in their areas.
This year, around one Crore 87 lakh citizens participated in the survey of 4 thousand 242 cities, 62 cantonment boards and 92 towns along the Ganga river. 129 awards were handed over to the top performing cities and States in today’s Swachh Mahotsav event. Swachh Survekshan 2020’, was completed in 28 days and witnessed registration of 1 crore 70 lakh citizens on Swachhata App. It also recorded over 11 crore impressions on social media platforms along with linking of more than 5 lakh 50 thousand sanitary workers to social welfare schemes and over 84 thousand informal waste-pickers into the mainstream.
Swachh Survekshan was introduced by the government with the objective of generating large-scale citizen participation in the Mission, along with inculcating a spirit of healthy competition among cities towards becoming India’s cleanest cities.
The event also witnessed felicitation of Urban Development Ministry’s partner organisations including the United States Agency for International Development, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Google. In the ‘Swachh Survekshan 2020’, Swachh Survekshan League, a quarterly cleanliness assessment of cities and towns was also introduced to ensure continuous assessment.
Secretary of Urban Development Ministry, Durga Shanker Mishra, senior officials and awardees from all over the country were present in the function.