Indore gets ‘cleanest city’ tag for third year in a row
06 Mar 2019
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Indore has been adjudged India’s cleanest city for the third straight year in the central government’s cleanliness survey. President Ram Nath Kovind conferred the Swachh Survekshan awards 2019 at a ceremony in New Delhi today.
New Delhi Municipal Council area was given the ‘Cleanest Small City’ award, while Uttarakhand’s Gauchar was adjudged the ‘Best Ganga Town’ in the annual survey conducted by the union ministry of housing and urban affairs.
Congratulating Indore, union minister for housing and urban affairs Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted, “Absolutely Brilliant! Indore is India’s Cleanest City for 3rd year running. My heartiest congratulations to the Swachhagrahis of Indore for their unmatched dedication & participation in transforming Swachh Bharat into a Jan Andolan.”
Speaking at the Swachh Survekshan Awards 2019 function, President Ram Nath Kovind said India has made remarkable progress towards achieving the goals of rural and urban sanitation. Today, a city or village is identified by its emphasis on cleanliness. This is an important change. By winning the first prize in all the four surveys so far, Indore has set an example for other urban centres, he said.
The President said cleanliness should be integral to the behaviour of every citizen to make it effective and sustainable. Many people pay attention to personal hygiene but remain apathetic to public and community cleanliness. Change in this mentality is important for achieving the goals of Swachh Bharat. He urged educational institutions to include cleanliness in their curriculum and spread awareness about the importance of sanitation.
Meanwhile, the National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) 2018-19, conducted by an Independent Verification Agency (IVA) under the World Bank support project to the Swachh Bharat Mission Grameen (SBM-G), has found that 96.5 per cent of the households in rural India who have access to a toilet use it. The NARSS also re-confirmed the Open Defecation Free (ODF) status of 90.7 per cent of villages which were previously declared and verified as ODF by various districts/states. The survey was conducted between November 2018 and February 2019 and covered 92,040 households in 6,136 villages across states and UTs of India.
