Lakhimpur in Assam has won the Fastest Mover City Award under population up to 25,000 in the Northeast zone category in Swachh Survekshan survey 2020 conducted by Union Housing & Urban Affairs Ministry.

The survey report was released on Thursday by Union housing & urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri in New Delhi.

While Indore won the coveted title of the Cleanest City of India, Surat and Navi Mumbai won the second and third positions respectively (in the above 1 lakh population category).

Chhattisgarh won the prestigious award of the Cleanest State of India in the above 100 ULB category while Jharkhand was adjudged the Cleanest State of India in the under 100 ULB category.

“Swachh Survekshan will continue to help us in sustaining the gains made under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) while providing a comprehensive roadmap to institutionalize the concept of total Swachhata among all our cities,” said Puri.

“As the performance of cities rightly show, we are well on our way to creating not just a ‘Swachh’ (clean) but a ‘Swasth’ (healthy), ‘Sashakt’ (empowered),‘Sampann’ (prosperous) and Atmanirbhar (self-reliant) New India,” Puri added.

Puri said the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) was launched in 2014 with the objective of making urban India 100% open defecation free (ODF) along with 100% scientific solid waste management.

“With no concept of ODF in urban areas and solid waste processing standing at a mere 18%, it was clear that an accelerated approach was necessary if the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s dream of a Swachh India was to be achieved within the timeframe of five years,” Puri said.

“A framework was therefore needed to bring about rigour in the progress in monitoring and a spirit of healthy competition amongst states and cities to improve their performance in key cleanliness parameters.”

“It was this underlying thought that led to the conceptualization and subsequent implementation of Swachh Survekshan (SS), a competitive framework to encourage cities to improve the status of urban sanitation while encouraging large scale citizen participation,” he added.

As per the survey, 4,324 urban local bodies (ULBs) have been declared ODF so far.

A total of 1,319 cities have been certified ODF+ and 489 cities have been certified ODF++.

More than 66 lakh individual household toilets and over 6 lakh community/public toilets were constructed.

Significantly, over 59,900 toilets across 2,900+ cities made live on Google maps.