Northeast states and cities have failed to excel in the Swachh Survekshan 2020, a digital survey carried out by the union ministry of housing and urban affairs on cleanliness.
In the states ranking Sikkim has been placed in the 13th position which is the highest among the NE states. Assam is next in the 14th, Nagaland in the 19th, Manipur 20th, Arunachal Pradesh 22nd, Tripura 23rd, Mizoram 25th and Meghalaya 27th.
However, Assam got the Fastest Mover State under the category of less than 100 urban local bodies (ULB).
Among the NE zone, Jiribam of Manipur has received highest points among the ULBs. And under the category of population between 50 thousand to 1 lakh, Assam’s Jorhat ULB has received maximum points followed by Tezpur, Bongaigaon, Diphu and Dhubri.
Under the category of population between 25,000 to 50,000, Mokokchung of Nagaland has received the highest points followed by Thoubal of Manipur in the second and Hailakandi of Assam in the 3rd. Among the less than 25,000 population category, Jiribam is at the top.
In the main category, Indore created a record by winning the title of cleanest city fourth time in a row. Surat and Navi Mumbai secured second and third positions respectively. Chhattisgarh has been declared the cleanest state among the states with more than 100 ULBs category. And Jharkhand is the cleanest state among the less than 100 ULBs category.
On the occasion MoHUA minister Hardeep Singh Puri said, “More than five years ago, the prime minister had seen a dream – the dream of a Swachh Bharat. Today, we feel immensely proud, as well as humbled, to see how every citizen of urban India has come together to make that dream a tangible reality. In the last five years, we have seen how this mission has created a deep impact on people’s health, livelihoods, quality of life and most importantly, in their thoughts and their behaviour”.
The minister further exhorted everyone to play their part and be a true swachhata warrior by inculcating habits of swachhata such as practising proper segregation of waste at source, saying no to single use plastic and treating sanitation workers with respect and dignity, amongst others.
