Madhya Pradesh’s Indore has been ranked the cleanest city for the fourth consecutive year under the Swachh Survekshan 2020, the centre’s annual survey on cleanliness under the Swachh Bharat Mission. Gujarat’s Surat and Maharashtra’s Navi Mumbai have bagged the second and third spot respectively, while the ancient holy town of Varanasi was awarded the cleanest town on the banks of the Ganga river. The Cleanest Cantonment Board award was bagged by Jalandhar cantonment from Punjab.

“Congratulations to the people of Indore for achieving the first position in being India’s cleanest city in Swachh Survekshan 2020. The city has hit a four this time and surely will hit a six in the coming future,” Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said.

Swachh Survekshan is cited as the world’s largest cleanliness survey by the government and this year a total of 4,242 cities, 62 Cantonment Boards and 92 Ganga Towns were assessed. This year, the format of the survey was tweaked to adopt a Swachh Survekshan League model, where instead of once in a year exercise of assessing the cities and states, the evaluation happened throughout the year and quarterly results put out. The survey focused on collection segregated waste and maintenance till processing site, treatment and reuse of wastewater, curtailing solid waste-based air pollution, among other factors.

Swachh Survekshan (Cleanliness survey) is an annual survey of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation in cities and towns across India. It was launched as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which aimed to make India clean and free of open defecation by 2 October 2019.