In News:

• Indore was recently awarded the cleanest city in India for the sixth year in a row and Madhya Pradesh awarded the cleanest state in the country.
• The awards were given by the President of India as part of the Azadi@75 Swachh Survekshan 2022, hosted as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM).
• On the occasion, the President also released an audio-visual song (the theme of the song was Garv (pride). The song captures the SBM's journey and the road ahead.

What’s in today’s article:

• About Swachh Survekshan
• About the Swachh Survekshan 2022 awards
• Success story of Indore

Swachh Survekshan:

About:

• It is an annual survey of cleanliness, hygiene and sanitation in cities and towns across India, launched as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (specifically under SBA-Urban).
• It was launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) with Quality Council of India (QCI) as its implementation partner.
  • The SBA was launched (on 2nd October 2014) to make India clean and free of open defecation by 2nd October 2019.
  • The SBA was split into two - rural (SBA-Gramin, monitored by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation under the Ministry of Jal Shakti) and urban (SBA-Urban, overseen by the MoHUA).
  • SBM-U 2.0 was recently launched on 1st October, 2021, focused on ensuring complete access to sanitation facilities for all.
    • The vision of a Garbage Free India is an initiative under SBM-U 2.0.
• The first survey was undertaken in 2016 (covering 73 cities), which had grown to cover 4242 (by the 2020 survey).

Objectives:

The Swachh Survekshan 2022 - Seventh edition:

Overview:

• Over the years, Swachh Survekshan has emerged as an effective tool for transforming the urban landscape.
• India celebrated 8 years of SBM and the first anniversary of SBM-U 2.0 by felicitating the awardees of the cleanest States and cities at the award ceremony of Azadi@75 Swachh Survekshan 2022.
  • It is hosted as part of SBM-U 2.0 by MoHUA.
• The vision of a Garbage Free India under SBM-U 2.0 was given further impetus by announcing the results of 7-star and 5-star rated cities under the Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities.
  • The revised Star Rating Protocol of Garbage Free Cities was launched in 2021 to holistically evaluate cities across solid waste management parameters.

Awards:

• In the State awards,
  • Madhya Pradesh was named the Cleanest State in the category of "more than 100 Urban Local Bodies," displacing Chhattisgarh, the previous three years' cleanest state, to second place. Maharashtra was named the third cleanest state.
  • Similarly, Tripura won the cleanest State award in the "less than 100 urban local bodies category," unseating Jharkhand, which had won the previous two years in a row.
    • Jharkhand and Uttarakhand finished second and third, respectively.
• Winners in other categories:
  • Indore strengthened its position by becoming India's first 7-star Garbage Free city, while Surat, Bhopal, Mysuru, Navi Mumbai, Vishakhapatnam, and Tirupati received 5-star Garbage Free designations.
  • Tirupati was named the best city in the Safai Mitra Suraksha category, while Haridwar in Uttarakhand was named the best Ganga town among cities with more than one lakh inhabitants.
  • Shivamogga in Karnataka was named a fast-moving city.

Success story of Indore - The city that has been adjudged cleanest for the 6th time in a row:

• The municipal waste was one of the major problems of Indore. The innovative steps specially to deal with garbage, took the city at the helm of the cleanest city of the country.
• The Indore Municipal Corporation launched a massive campaign to make Indore a garbage free city in 2016.
• IMC removed garbage containers and started door-to-door garbage collection.
  • In 2017, this door-to-door collection played a key role in fetching its first cleanest city tag for Indore.
• Indore went one step ahead and started segregation of wet and dry waste at source. With this, Indore retained the top rank in 2018.
• By freeing 100 acres of land from waste (in just six months), Indore made a hat-trick of being cleanest city in 2019 rankings.
• In 2019, Indore banned single use plastic thus becoming the first city in the country to do so. Also, it installed big machines at the trenching ground to segregate 15 types of dry waste.
  • These steps guided Indore to fetch cleanest city tag for 4th time in a row in 2020.
• For Swachh Survekshan-2021, Indore did nullah (nalla) tapping ensuring that sewerage water does not flow into Kanh and Saraswati rivers.
  • It created five zero waste generating wards and started constructing Asia's biggest plant for converting garbage into bio-CNG and compost.
• Hence, efforts of citizens, government officials and public representatives have written the success story of India