New Delhi (NVI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi will announce the results of Swachh Survekshan 2020, on August 20, the fifth edition of the annual cleanliness survey of the country.
The virtual event is being organized by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA). During the event, a total of 129 awards will be handed over to the top performing cities and states in the programme, titled “Swachh Mahotsav”.
The Prime Minister will also be interacting with select beneficiaries, swachhagrahis and SafaiKarmis under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U), from different parts of the country through video conference, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
He shall launch the Swachh Survekshan 2020 results dashboard on the occasion, it added.
Swachh Survekshan 2020 is the world’s largest cleanliness survey which ranked a total of 4,242 cities, 62 cantonment boards and 92 ganga towns and saw an unprecedented participation of 1.87 crore citizens.
The government introduced Swachh Survekshan with the objective of generating large scale citizen participation in the Mission, along with inculcating a spirit of healthy competition among cities towards becoming India’s cleanest cities.
In 2016, MoHUA had conducted Swachh Survekshan for rating 73 major cities in January, followed by Swachh Survekshan 2017 conducted in January-February for ranking 434 cities.
Swachh Survekshan 2018, which, ranked 4,203 cities followed by the 2019 edition which not only covered 4,237 cities but was also the first-of-its-kind completely digital survey completed in a record time of 28 days.
According to the ministry, in Swachh Survekshan 2020, in order to ensure continuous assessment and sustainability of on-ground performance of cities, the government had also introduced Swachh Survekshan League, a quarterly cleanliness assessment of cities and towns conducted across three quarters, with 25 per cent weightage integrated into the final Swachh Survekshan results for this year.
Moreover, the survey has also caught the imagination of citizens and stakeholders alike and the increasing participation from citizens with every passing year is testimony to the way in which common citizenry has taken complete ownership of the Swachhata of its cities.
Swachh Survekshan has today made ‘Swachhata’ a thing of motivation and pride – something to look forward to and aspire for. In the first edition of the survey, Mysuru had won the award for the Cleanest City of India, while Indore has retained the top position for three consecutive years (2017,2018, 2019), the PMO stated.
The results to be announced on August 20 will bring the curtains down on the much-anticipated results for the 2020 edition which were delayed owing to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, the event will also bring together and felicitation of MoHUA’s partner organizations in the SBM-U journey, including United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Google, etc.
Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (I/C), MoHUA Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, MoHUA shall be participating in the event along with various Mayors, State Mission Directors, Municipal Commissioners and other stakeholders in the area of urban sanitation and waste management.
However, Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) has made significant progress in the area of both sanitation and solid waste management.
-RJV
