Swachhta Survey: Lucknow among three cleanest cities

Time of India

7 days ago

Lucknow emerged as the third cleanest city of the country, behind Ahmedabad and Bhopal in the million-plus population category under the new ranking system introduced in the Swachhta Survekshan 2024-25.
The winners were honoured by President Droupadi Murmu in New Delhi on Thursday.
Indore, in the same population category, emerged as the cleanest city for the ninth consecutive time, followed by Surat and Navi Mumbai. These cities, however, were bracketed under newly created 'Super Swachh League' and have been kept out in this year's survey. Ahmedabad, Bhopal and Lucknow have been kept under Swachh Shehar category.
Overall Uttar Pradesh cities and towns showed a remarkably improved performance with Prayagraj again emerging as the cleanest Gana town and Noida topping the Super League chart in the 3 lakh-10lakh population category. Apart from Lucknow, seven UP cities made it to the top 20 clean cities in the million-plu category.
Cleanliness maintained during the Maha Kumbh 2025 managed to impress the judges, with several awards being given out for the sanitation practices deployed during the mega event.
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"Marching steadily on the path of development under the leadership of CM Yogi Adityanath, 83 urban local bodies improved their rankings compared to the previous year while disposing of and dealing with solid waste," said a state govt spokesperson. Urban development minister AK Sharma received the honours on behalf of the local bodies. Lucknow mayor Sushma Kharkwal and former municipal commissioner Inderjeet Singh received the award for the city.
Lucknow became the first city in the state to achieve a 7-star garbage GFC rating, a historic milestone. Six cities -- Agra, Gorakhpur, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Prayagraj & Noida -- received a 5-star rating.
Gorakhpur achieved double success, securing third rank in the safaimitra surakshit shaher category and fourth cleanest city (with a population between 3 lakh and 10 lakh). Moradabad was at the tenth position in the same category.
Agra was recognised as the emerging clean city, securing 32nd rank nationally.
Bijnor and Shamshabad also figured in the top-100 cities (nagar palikas). Sharma said, "The achievements showcase the collective efforts of our citizens, local bodies, and senior govt officials." Principal Secretary, urban development, Amrit Abhijat, said, "We need to highlight the turnaround achieved by 16 cities that achieved the water-plus status."
Water-plus status is accorded to the local bodies that are able to handle sanitation, water management, and recycling practices effectively. For the first time, Bijnor and Shamshabad nagar palikas were able to deploy such practices. Among 17 municipal corporations, 13 were accorded the water plus status. Last time, only two cities were accorded water plus status.
Similarly, compared to 129 urban local bodies that were shortlisted in the previous round of ranking, in the 2024-25 survekshan, 337 were declared as ODF ++ ULBs.
Director of urban local bodies and Swachh Bharat state mission director Anuj Jha said, "Verified door-to-door garbage collection went up from 48% to 62% in UP in a year. Similarly, garbage processing was also up from 48% to 85%."