Indore beats Mysuru to lift India's 'cleanest city' title

The Swachh Survekshan 2017 report, which was released on Thursday by Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, has put Indore as the cleanest city among the 434 surveyed for cleanliness, while another BJP-ruled state Uttar Pradesh's Gonda city has been ranked as dirtiest city in the country.

While Varanasi improved it's ranking by making it to 32 position this year as it was among top 10 dirtiest cities in 2016 survey and at 418 position in 2014. Notably, West Bengal had not participated in the cleanliness survey.

It may be seen as a response to the call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make city clean, his home state Gujarat has topped the list of states with the maximum number of cleanest cities.

According to the report, the 12 cities of Gujarat has been ranked as cleanest cities, followed by Madhya Pradesh with 11 clean cities and Andhra Pradesh at the third position with 8 cities.

The states with the lowest rankings included Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Bihar and of the ten least clean places, five are in Uttar Pradesh. According to the survey report, cities like Bhopal, Visakhapatnam, Surat, Mysuru, Tiruchirapally, New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), Navi Mumbai, Vadodara, Chandigarh are among the top 10 clean cities.

The 10 towns that have come at the bottom of the 434 surveyed cities include Gonda (UP) at 434 position, followed by Bhusawal (Maharashtra) at 433, Bagaha (Bihar) at 432 position, Hardoi (UP) at 431, Katihar (Bihar) at 430, Bahraich (UP) at 429, Muktsar (Punjab) at 428, Abohar (Punjab) at 427, Shahjahanpur (UP) at 426 and Khurja (UP) at 425.

Announcing the survey results, Naidu described Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh followed by Andhra Pradesh and Telangana as the Movers and Shakers for having significantly improved their rankings from that of the survey conducted in 2014 before the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission in October 2014. Swachh Survekshan conducted in 2016 covered 73 cities with over million populations each besides capital cities.

Referring to Mysuru in Karnataka which topped the ranks in 2016 and 2014 and ranked five in this year's survey, Naidu asserted that in no way it meant that cleanliness has declined in the city.

He explained that Mysuru scored over 87 per cent out of the total score of 2,000 in both 2017 and 2016 indicating that sanitation level has not come down this year while other cities have scored over Mysuru.