Nagpur up 5 spots in swachh ranking after NMC's appeal

Time of India

9 hours ago

Nagpur: The city's ranking in the Swachh Bharat Survekshan improved following an appeal by the civic body. The Union ministry of housing and urban affairs has now placed Nagpur at rank 22A (out of 40), up from its earlier position of 27.
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The revised ranking was confirmed on its national dashboard, with municipal commissioner Abhijeet Chaudhari sharing the update on Wednesday.
Nagpur's state ranking also saw a rise — from 29 to 25A out of 414 urban local bodies in Maharashtra. The city's overall score now stands at 9,836 out of 12,500, up from the previous 9,328, additional municipal commissioner Vasumana Pant told TOI. To a query, Pant explained that since Nashik already held the 22nd rank, Nagpur has been assigned 22A to reflect its equal standing.
As a result, the 27th position in the national ranking list now remains vacant, the Swachh Survekshan results website stated.
The improvement followed NMC's detailed representation under the guidance of Chaudhari, pointing out discrepancies in the initial assessment. "We highlighted major mismatches in legacy data related to daily waste collection and vehicle tracking over the past three years. After verification, a fresh site visit was conducted, and our claims were accepted," said Pant.
Key metrics show substantial progress. Door-to-door waste collection surged from 30% to 90%, while segregation at source improved dramatically from 1% to 60%. However, waste processing, which was earlier marked at 100%, was revised to 60% following a stricter re-evaluation. The city has now also earned one star under the Garbage-Free City (GFC) certification — a benchmark it failed to achieve earlier this year.
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"Nagpur's score was already contentious. About 30% in door-to-door collection and 1% at source segregation were surprising. The scores in these two parameters increased to 90% and 60%, which gave us 500 in GFC certification were we had earlier scored zero," Kaustav Chatterjee, Swachhata ambassador said.
The earlier ranking sparked sharp criticism from citizens and within the civic administration, where officials admitted that weak inter-departmental coordination and poor documentation hampered performance.
The latest recognition reflects growing momentum in the city's cleanliness efforts.
Even in Swachh Survekshan 2023, Nagpur was placed 86th among 400 cities with a population above one lakh. The NMC objected to this categorisation, insisting that Nagpur should have been evaluated in the million-plus category.
Major recent initiatives include the 'Swachhata Hi Seva' campaign, Backlane Cleanliness Drive, compressed biogas facility, C&D waste plant, and biomining project at Bhandewadi.
Citizen-led programs like 'One Date, One Hour', Swachh Mohalla, Clean Market initiatives, Eco Bricks, and awareness campaigns in schools have further boosted community participation.
In a statement, Chaudhari said Nagpur's progress was acknowledged in a recent central govt report for its participatory initiatives. He added that NMC now aims to push for a Top 10 rank in upcoming surveys by intensifying cleanliness efforts across all zones.