Indian government launches ‘Swachh Survekshan 2021’

NEW DELHI: Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India launched the sixth edition of ‘Swachh Survekshan’, the annual cleanliness survey conducted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, on Friday, July 3, 2020. The parameters that will be kept in mind while judging different cities pertain to wastewater treatment and reuse along with faecal sludge. He added that every year, the Swachh Survekshan is redesigned innovatively to ensure that the process becomes more robust, with focus on sustaining the behaviour change.

Puri also announced a new category of awards titled ‘Prerak Dauur Samman’ as part of Swachh Survekshan 2021. It includes five additional sub-categories -Divya (Platinum), Anupam (Gold), Ujjwal (Silver), Udit (Bronze), Aarohi (Aspiring) – with top three cities being recognized in each.

According to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, state ranking will also be announced under the survey on the basis of six select indicator-wise performance criteria which include segregation of waste into Wet, Dry and Hazardous categories, processing capacity against wet waste generated, processing and recycling of wet and dry waste, construction and demolition waste processing and percentage of waste going to landfills and sanitation status of cities.

The ministry said that Swachh Survekshan 2020 had seen an unprecedented participation of 1.87 crore citizens. The Swachh Survekshan 2019, which not only covered 4,237 cities but was also the first-of-its-kind completely digital survey, was completed in a record time of 28 days. The 2018 edition of the cleanliness survey had become the world’s largest cleanliness survey in which 4,203 cities were ranked.